A Big Fan of Robotics
Fascinated by robotics since young, a girl joined the Robotics Club after being admitted to The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She led a team named Crimson and developed a multi-tasking robot for participating in The Robocon 2019 Hong Kong Contest. Creative and intelligent, they had bagged home the Best Engineering Design Award. Robotics has made and will make this girl’s life more targeted and fascinating.
The girl is Athena Cheung, now a year 4 student majoring in Mechanical Engineering. While suffering from hearing impairment, she always thinks positive and never gives up. She loves building robots since secondary school and is committed to venturing into the field of robotics. Working diligently for the DSE examination, she was admitted to her dream programme, Mechanical Engineering at PolyU to learn about designing, developing and improving mechanical components, products and systems to create better life for people. (note: from website of the department)
Thoroughly enjoyed the academic programme, Athena aspires to be an engineering professional who could contribute to making the world a better place. She is also thinking about engaging in the research area to push the knowledge frontier. She knows that there are plenty of opportunities ahead.
The outbreak of the pandemic in these 2 years has brought new challenges to students, including Athena. The traditional face-to-face class has to change to online mode, which has made interaction with professors and fellow students difficult. According to Athena, the course on Engineering Design Fundamentals is most challenging. Not only the students have to attend the class online, they also have to rely on on-line communication for doing the group product design project. Athena is glad that she could overcome her hearing limitation and proactively engaged in the discussion for the group project with other groupmates.
Besides study, Athena has actively involved in related interest clubs. She has been serving as a student assistant in Automation, Robotics and Mechatronics (ARM) research group which helps open her eyes and mind in the research arena. Her main duty is to help build a deep learning model for a robot arm, with which, the robot arms can grasp objects correctly and automatically. She has also joined the PolyU FENG Robotics Club since Year 1 and the PolyU Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Team, (UAV) since Year 2.
In UAV, after learning the basic knowledge of an unmanned aerial vehicle such as its hardware components and their safety concern from postgraduate teammates, she has successfully set up a quadcopter and built a fixed-wing VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) UAV.
For the final year project, she plans to build a fixed-wing UAV, which can carry a 1-kg payload and fly for 1 hour. Her research focus in this project is to conduct model predictive control (MPC) for VTOL UAV.
Athena is grateful for all the nice and thoughtful people she come across at PolyU. She said her professors and fellow students are all kind and considerate. They always speak louder and slowly when she is around and will stand next to her ear with better hearing ability so that she can hear them more clearly. Moreover, the staff members of the SEN Caring Team meet up with her regularly in order to better attend to her needs. Athena knows it is all because of their support that she can enjoy so much her university life at PolyU.
Athena is planning to further her study and her target is to get a PhD degree. She wants to engage in research related to MPC, UAV systems and robotics and hopes to contribute to the discipline of UAV or robotics and invent some extraordinary techniques or designs.
One of her Professor, Prof. C.Y. Wen, Head of Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering, said that Athena joined his lab in her second year and then continued to do the final year project under his supervision. He finds that Athena has never used hearing impairment as an excuse to learn less or do less. She is well received by every lab member because she has very positive learning attitude. After lab members know that she has hearing impairment, everyone is willing to provide extra help. Prof Wen said that Athena is a very good example and reckoned that we should provide more opportunities to SEN students.
機械人的忠實粉絲
一位從小就對機械人著迷的女孩子被香港理工大學錄取後，馬上加入了機械人學會。之後，她帶領同學組織一個團隊，取名Crimson，為參加2019全港大專生機械人大賽而研發了一個多任務機械人，憑著創意和智慧贏得最佳工程設計獎。因為機械人，這位女生的生活愈來愈有目標，也愈來愈精采。
這位女孩子是張曉晴，現在已是四年級學生，主修機械工程。雖然她患有聽力障礙，但總是積極面對，從來沒有想過放棄。從中學時期開始，她就喜歡製作機械人，並決心投入這個領域。她埋頭苦幹應付文憑考試，終於獲她夢寐以求的理大機械工程系錄取，可以學習設計、開發及改善機械零件、產品及系統，為人們創造更美好的生活。
曉晴非常喜歡所修讀的學科，她立志成為一名專業工程師，為創造更美好的世界作出貢獻。她也考慮從事研究工作，推動知識前沿。她知道，未來會有很多機會等著她。
這兩年因為新冠肺炎肆虐，所以為學生帶來了新的挑戰，曉晴當然也受影響。傳統的面授課堂轉為線上課堂，難免令教授和同學之間的交流互動變得困難。曉晴認為工程設計基礎課程是最具挑戰性的。學生不僅需要在線上課，還需要依靠在線交流來完成小組產品設計項目。 曉晴很高興自己能夠克服聽力上的限制，積極與其他組員一起為項目進行討論。
除了學習，曉晴還積極參加相關的興趣學會。她曾擔任自動化、機械人技術和機電一體化(ARM)研究小組的學生助理，並因此擴闊了她在研究領域的視野和思維。她的主要職責是協助建立一個機械人手臂的深度學習模型，透過這個模型，機械人手臂可以正確地自動抓取物體。曉晴自大學一年級起便成為「理大「風」機械人學會」會員，並於二年級加入「理大無人機隊」。
在無人機方面，曉晴透過向研究生隊友取經而吸收了無人機的硬件組成、安全問題等基本知識，成功搭建了一個四旋翼飛行器和一個固定翼垂直起飛和降落（VTOL）無人駕駛飛行器。
曉晴計劃建造一架固定翼無人機作為她的畢業專題項目，該無人機要能夠攜帶1公斤的重量飛行1小時。她這個專題的研究重點是為垂直起降（VTOL）的無人機進行模型預測控制（MPC）。
曉晴說她在理大遇上很多善良和體貼的人，實在無限感激，教授和同學都很善解人意，她在場時，他們總會以更大的聲量和更慢的速度來說話，也會站在她聽力較佳的耳朵旁邊說話，讓她能聽得更清楚。此外，特殊教育需要(SEN)關懷小組的職員也會定期與她見面，確保能更好地照顧她的需要。曉晴知道，因為他們的支持，所以她可以盡情享受理大的大學生活。
曉晴計劃繼續深造，她的目標是取得博士學位。她希望從事與MPC、無人機系統和機械人相關的研究，為無人機或機器人學科作出貢獻，以及開發一些非凡的技術或設計。
航空及民航工程學系主任溫志湧教授說，曉晴在大學第二年加入了他的實驗室，之後繼續在其指導下完成畢業專題項目。他說曉晴從未以聽力障礙作為少學、少做的藉口，學習態度非常積極，深受實驗室每一位成員的歡迎，而實驗室成員知道曉晴有聽力障礙後，都很願意為她提供額外的協助。溫教授認為曉晴是一個很成功的例子，大家應該為有特殊教育需要的學生提供更多的機會。
