Programme: Discovery Lab Camp
Partner Institution: Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Period: July 14 – 24, 2019
Through the China Vision Trip, I have built up an understanding of how Shanghai people live. I have experienced the use of different mobile application in China which greatly simplified the payment process. I was also given chances to have a look at the skyline of Shanghai and the daily life of Shanghai people through the sight-visit trip organized by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Based on the things I have seen during the trip, I discovered that Shanghai is quite a modern city.
Apart from the observation part, one of the impressive things in this programme is that we are allowed to have a close look at different types of laboratory in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Laboratory related to marine, soil and structural engineering were visited during the trip with the information given by the professors over there. These visits provided us with a chance to understand how big an experiment could be to obtain an experiment result.
Apart from visiting the laboratory, we were also given a chance to have an experiment using the shaking table. This is a precious chance for civil engineering students like us to have such an experiment. From the installation of different sensors to analyzing result obtained from the experiment, this can hardly be experienced in HKU as we did not have similar equipment and time during the usual lesson.
Therefore, I would recommend this programme to civil engineering students who are interested in having a hands-on experiment, starting from welding a strain gauge to managing and linking all the messy wire to the router. About the overall structure of the programme, I enjoy having lessons in the morning and playing around in Shanghai in the afternoon. Although we are required to make a report and presentation at the end of the trip, we still managed to initiate some visit with the master student over there every day and have a look on the entertainment side of Shanghai, from karaoke in KTV, playing in VR theme park, having archery to watching a movie. Therefore, I believe anyone who is not that interested in earthquake engineering would still enjoy the trip. Besides, a lot of technical support and knowledgeable support is provided by the master student and professors throughout the trip, so even a student who has not studied structural dynamic before can still handle the experiment and report. Lastly, I would suggest the China Vision team to advertise this programme through the civil engineering department as I believe this can increase the exposure of this programme to the civil engineering student.