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Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
I recall a while back a thread about fellow Hexites getting their results and oh was it torture. Why? Cause I had to wait a couple weeks more and I've in fact been waiting for over 10 months.
On the 24th of July 2008 in London, I was up in my room working on my thesis and collapsed off my chair at around 5 am. The entire room was spinning - whilst leaving out much of the 'gory' details I think I blacked out for several hours on the floor as I am terribly motion sick (used to only be able to play Quake, CS etc for a couple hours). I came to somewhere in the afternoon and the room was still spinning; however I managed to force myself into the shower (en suite apartment) and pass out on my bed after giving my Mom a call who at the time had just flew to Colombo, Sri Lanka less than a week earlier.
I know, the sensible thing would have been to call the Ambulance right? No...I am glad I didn't. She called my cousins who happened to be about 2-3 stops from Waterloo and they were there to my rescue in less than 30 mins. Calling the NHS meant playing 20 questions and being told "your situation is not life threatening, we cannot send an ambulance" - not fun when the room is spinning tbh. My Mom did a quick u-turn and got back to London by the weekend and stayed with me since then as I was completely immobilised.
The doctors confirmed that I had contracted 'Labrynthitis' and I think the worst thing I did was to peruse WebMD when I started to feel a bit better. After about a week, I could just about look at a chair that was 3-4 ft away - anything more and my head felt like it would explode.
It was at this time that I was working on the 'Theoretical Development' chapter of my dissertation - and as my Professor insisted, it needed to be Academic enough to even hope of obtaining over 70% for MSc project/dissertation. On top of all this, I think I developed a bit of insomnia. I can remember lying in bed right through out the night. Even though the 'stematil' stopped the room from spinning my brain felt cloudy and well awful.
To make matters worse, the dissertation was officially due 9th September and I hadn't even built my robot! By the second week of August, I had made much progress propped up in bed with the laptop on the theoretical development, where I think I heard Mel Gi...I mean, God, speak to me and it seems I managed to come up with a rather ingenious application for an existing mathematical model; at least, never been done before in the field of mobile robots.
My Mom helped me to put a small 'lab' together inside the apartment. Ordered what I needed from Farnell, Rapid, and Maplins including an oscilloscope as well. I managed to put my robot together within a week; it's rather interesting using a drill and soldering iron while the room seems to have an axis of its own...mmm, not recommend! I even built most of the power supply units (as I was too cheap to buy a bench PSU) by hacking a few AC adaptors and adding in some components.
The PCBs I had etched in Malaysia (designed whilst in the bed) also arrived in good time. These were the motor drivers of the robot. You can read all about my robot here, as well as check out a few YouTube videos of it in action. The final robot was far less complicated than what I had initially planned, but it got the job done.
The department had given me an extension till 12th December 2008 but I did not want to spend so long on my project - this also meant having to leave the University apartment (something I've never done before) by the 9th of Sept and finding my own diggs in London. After much progress, on the 9th of September, we both flew to my Aunts in Geneva as I was severely depressed and was in much need of Cheese Fondue and raclett - a change of scenery at least. Accompanied with my Dell 24" LCD and laptop, I spent the following week in a room in my Aunt's house...pouring over and adding the finishing touches to my work. After a prayer, the final PDF was created by my LaTeX files in TexShop and I emailed it to the printers on the Strand in London.
The bound and embossed copies of my dissertation were delivered to my Professor on the 17th of September. We flew back to London and I had my viva voce on the 26th of September, where I demonstrated the robot to my Professor.
This put a spoke in matters as far as my degree was considered as the 'extension' provided meant that my project/thesis marks could not be ratified till the next School board meeting. That was held yesterday, the 22nd of July 2009. This came through today via 'myKCL',
Award Type MASTER OF SCIENCE
Award Name Mechatronics
Classification Pass with Distinction
Date of Award 01/08/2009
I think my Mom is actually far more chuffed than I am :mrgreen: I only get the actual ratified marks tomorrow, should be interesting. Thought I'd share this with you all.
All the best,
Mike.
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Congratulations and well done on fighting through.
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
well done you clever clever bugger you.
and it's not mel gibson its morgan freeman:P
for your next project you could build a 'working' gundam robot, make it move, fire lasers and all that, that would be awesome :mrgreen:
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Congratulations and well done for sticking at it mate.
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Congratulations to you, I don't imagine something like an MSc is an easy task by any stretch!
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Well done mate! It's good to hear that it all worked out and you have got such a great degree! I had labrynthitis whilst at medical school. Consider yourself lucky you didn't have a bunch of med student mates elliciting the signs of inner ear disease. It involves pushing you over whilst standing with your eyes closed. With your balance organs out of whack you fall over. When you do it on patients you are supposed to catch them!
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
/Off Topic
WTF IS THE USE WITH DOCTORS? I MEAN SERIOUSLY, FFS.
I suffered with "Labrynthitis" for two - five years, on and off, sometimes I would have it for a week, other times longer, and sometimes just daily and it would be gone the next. I went to the Dcotors monthly and even went for a brain scan, yet, I was never, ever told, about this problem called "Labrynthitis".
Just read up about it, and it is EXACTLY what I had, and tbh, I am not 100% as I do suffer from time to time and now I cannot go on any rollercoasters etc as my head will physically spin and I'll get vertigo.
And Anxiety, don't get me started on that, a side affect of it? ****ing hell. My name should be called "Labrynthitis"
Thank you for solving this problem in my life
/On Topic
Well done, it is absolute hell, and it feels like you are being spun round for hours on end 200mph at a time.
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Congrats Mike!
You uploaded your dis anywhere?
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Awesome :)
But what does Marv actually do?
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bsodmike
I even built most of the power supply units (as I was too cheap to buy a bench PSU) by hacking a few AC adaptors and adding in some components.
For some reason this made me laff:p.
But well done mate, an MSc with Distinction is a real achievement, particularly in the face of a debilitating illness. I've not had a happy history when it come to my ears; two mastoidectomies have left me with approx 30% hearing in my left ear, and a lopsided face, since it sits much closer to my head than my right ear, which TBH takes after my dad and sticks out a bit. Years of lopsided hearing has caused me to speak with a pronounced drawl.
But I've never had balance problems (except after sustained spirits abuse:p).
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Congrats Mike, nice job all round :)
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Thanks guys :)
@Jim: Yup, reading up on WebMD whilst in bed was the worst thing I could have done. It pretty much detailed the worst case scenario. Essentially, I had to force myself to walk in the end to get my inner ear to re-adjust. Thankfully, there was no one around to push me over though :p
@SammEl: I really feel for you mate; Labrynthitis is a horrible thing to get and I'd never wish it on anyone. When I came back home to Colombo, one of my Uncles who is a Doctor was scolding saying that the UK Dr's should have prescribed "stergerone" (sp?) and that stematil only inhibits the vertigo but does not completely cure the infection.
@TheAnimus: Not yet mate. Am working on a paper based off it; once that's done I may decide to upload it to Scribd.
@Rave: Since I was only in London temporarily it really did not make sense buying all that equipment, as taking it home would've been a nightmare. There are rare occasions when I can be cheap too...I'm scaring myself now :O_o1:
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Re: Bit about my time in London (long), and some good news :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bsodmike
There are rare occasions when I can be cheap too...I'm scaring myself now :O_o1:
Watch out Hexus bsodmike will be buying £10 watches and pens :( bsodmike think happy nice watches lol Also congrats!!!!