Travels and Photos

Through 2022, I allowed myself to travel more, although previously I didn’t really like to travel that much. The idea of just spending time in trains, bus, or a flight to reach a destination and end up walking around the city. At first, this seemed pointless, but as I went on, the experience of novelty, letting the universe surprise you sometimes, having friends around you is what makes travels great. So, recently, I also liked taking pictures and also edit them so the colors pop, giving a brighter note to the experience I had, where I dared to go somewhere else and not stay back and do nothing.

Exams with ChatGPT

Last year, there was a question in my exam, it was about measuring the density of 100 g of solder particles, to be used in a solder paste, and determine the alloy based on the density. The equipment is only a balance and vernier calliper, which cannot precisely determine the size of a small particle. Then we had to propose another method, using a readily available equipment in a home or a typical laboratory.

This question had me stumped for a while, until I had a eureka moment when I went for a bathroom break. Mind you, this was an all aids permitted exam. Maybe if you’re not under pressure, it’s easy to find that Archimedes principle can be used. But this scenario wouldn’t have been easy to Google unless you know what you’re looking for.

ChatGPT has taken the world by a storm. Sometimes, when you give them a prompt, it sounds like the AI really knows what it’s talking about. I was curious to see if it can come up with an answer, and it did.

Prompt #1: You have 100 g of solder particles, intended to be used for solder paste. The alloy of the particles is unknown, but it is the same for all particles. The particles appear to be spherical, with some distribution in size. You shall measure the mass density of the particles, to have an indication of what alloy is used. The equipment you have is a balance and vernier calipers, propose a method for precise measurement of mass density

ChatGPT: Here is a proposed method for measuring the mass density of the 100g of solder particles:

  1. Measure the diameter of a representative sample of particles using vernier calipers. Take at least 10 measurements to get an average diameter and standard deviation.
  2. Use the average diameter to calculate the volume of each particle, assuming they are spherical.
  3. Weigh a sample of the particles, and use the weight and volume to calculate the mass density of the sample.
  4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 several times to get multiple samples, to get a more accurate average mass density.
  5. Finally, calculate the average mass density of all the samples, and use the standard deviation to determine the precision of the measurement.

Prompt #2: Do you have other recommendation for an even more precise method?

ChatGPT: Yes, here is another method that could give you even more precise results:

  1. Use a more precise balance, such as an analytical balance, to measure the weight of the samples.
  2. Instead of using vernier calipers, consider using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to get an even more accurate measurement of the particle size and shape.
  3. In addition to measuring the mass density, you could also use energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) in combination with the SEM to determine the composition of the particles, which can be useful in identifying the specific alloy being used.
  4. To further improve precision, consider increasing the sample size and measuring multiple samples to get a more representative average value.

Prompt #3: What if I don’t have a SEM and still want a more precise measurement?

ChatGPT: If you don’t have access to a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), here are some additional steps you can take to improve the precision of the mass density measurement:

  1. Use a more precise balance, such as an analytical balance, to measure the weight of the samples.
  2. Consider using image analysis software to more accurately measure the particle size and shape from optical microscopy images.
  3. In addition to measuring the mass density, you could use X-ray diffraction (XRD) or X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis to determine the composition of the particles, which can be useful in identifying the specific alloy being used.
  4. Consider using more advanced statistical methods to analyze the data, such as Monte Carlo simulation or bootstrapping, to estimate the precision of the measurement.
  5. To further improve precision, consider increasing the sample size and measuring multiple samples to get a more representative average value.

Prompt #4: I still don’t want to use any microscope to measure the density, any other ideas?

ChatGPT: If you don’t want to use a microscope to measure the density of the solder particles, here are some additional steps you can take to improve the precision of your measurement:

  1. Use a more precise balance, such as an analytical balance, to measure the weight of the samples.
  2. Consider using image analysis software to more accurately measure the particle size and shape from optical microscopy images.
  3. In addition to measuring the mass density, you could use X-ray diffraction (XRD) or X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis to determine the composition of the particles, which can be useful in identifying the specific alloy being used.
  4. To further improve precision, consider increasing the sample size and measuring multiple samples to get a more representative average value.
  5. Consider using statistical methods such as bootstrapping or Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the precision of the measurement.

Prompt #5: You still recommend using image analysis software and optical microscope, is there any other way?

ChatGPT: Yes, here is an alternative method that does not involve image analysis software or an optical microscope:

  1. Use a more precise balance, such as an analytical balance, to measure the weight of the samples.
  2. Measure the volume of the sample by a displacement method. This can be done by adding the particles to a known volume of water or a fluid of known density, and measuring the change in fluid volume.
  3. Use the weight and volume measurements to calculate the mass density of the sample.
  4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 several times to get multiple samples, to get a more accurate average mass density.
  5. Finally, calculate the average mass density of all the samples, and use the standard deviation to determine the precision of the measurement.

Finally, at the fifth prompt, ChatGPT uses a water displacement method. Some of the details of the exam question were omitted in the prompt, but it was amusing nonetheless to see ChatGPT in action. Some of the suggestions were overkill for the task and some were reasonable but not impactful. I could imagine seeing ChatGPT being one way to help brainstorming for ideas. A realistic prediction would be that there are no more all-aids permitted exam in the future!

Sebuah Kenangan Prof. MH Matondang

Orang banyak mengenal sosok Prof. Matondang sebagai seorang guru besar, pemimpin, dan mungkin teladan. Bagi saya, dia adalah ompung Grogol, adik dari mendiang ompung kandung saya. Sewaktu kecil, saya tidak mengerti sama sekali adat Batak, ompung kandung saya sudah meninggal sejak papi saya masih di bangku sekolah. Ompung Grogol yang banyak menjelaskan sedikit demi sedikit, setelah saya sudah dewasa, tidak lama setelah saya lulus kuliah. Sekarang, saya mengerti kenapa dulu saat kecil saya dengar: “adik kesayangan papi, kakak kesayangan ompung”. Ternyata, saya adalah keturunan laki-laki yang menyandang nama marga dan diharapkan untuk meneruskan nama baik tersebut.

Sebelum saya berangkat ke Finlandia, ompung Grogol bahagia bahwa cucunya bisa lanjut belajar di luar negeri. Namun, memang terlihat bahwa kesedihan juga ada di dalam pikirannya. Tidak jarang ompung memanggil saya untuk mendengarkan cerita, ceramah, dan wejangan setiap saya ada di rumah. Walaupun dalam kondisi setelah sakit stroke, ompung masih mau berbagi pengalaman hidupnya. Berat melihat kondisi yang memburuk seiring waktu, mungkin saya sedikit naif, tapi masih berharap bisa bertemu kembali setelah lulus studi. Tuhan berkehendak lain, ompung sudah tidak menderita sakit lagi.

Teringat pertemuan terakhir kami, satu hari sebelum pesawat saya berangkat. Ompung memegang kepala saya dan mendekatkannya dengan kepalanya. Semasa hidupnya, ompung berharap ada yang bisa mengikuti jejaknya. Besar harapan beliau untuk anak, keponakan, dan cucunya agar menjadi orang-orang yang berguna untuk diri sendiri, keluarga, masyarakat, dan bangsa. Ompung pernah cerita bahwa beliau pernah membawa salah satu keluarga untuk membuat setelan jas, dengan pesan supaya bisa jadi orang di kemudian hari. Kini, saya juga punya setelan jas yang dipesankan oleh ompung untuk wisuda S1. Kelak, akan saya kenakan juga di wisuda saya selanjutnya, dengan harapan doamu didengar oleh Allah.

Ompung Grogol, terima kasih karena sudah memberikan inspirasi, bimbingan, dan segala support yang diberikan dalam proses pendewasaan saya. Walaupun saya jauh dari Jakarta, saya yakin sekarang jarak kita hanya sebuah doa, melalui perantara kita, Yesus Kristus. Semoga segala perbuatan baikmu dikenang oleh semua yang telah terbantu dan semoga Tuhan Yesus mengampuni segala dosamu. Amin.

Finlandia, 12 Agustus 2022
Josef Stevanus Matondang

Reflections on Work Experience

This is the summer internship season and I’ve found myself also looking back to my first internships and work experience. When looking back, I find myself being grateful of the guidance and advices I’ve received from my seniors/mentors. I feel like writing this post to list them so I can remember if my memory fails me, while probably sharing this experience with anyone who’s interested.

My first job ever was as an intern at English Language for Executives, a company founded by my late great-aunt, who passed away while I was in Norway. While I was working there, one of the older English teacher gave me a piece of advice. She mentioned how having work experience and the right on-the-job experience would be beneficial in the career. She highlighted how having the right plan and committing to it is important. During this time, students in my cohort was trying to take part in organizing student events and participating student-run organization as a way to build their resume. With this chance encounter, I managed to make a different plan than the others, try to get an assistantship position and build the right skills for the career I’m looking for.

In my second year, I was improving both in my studies and landed a student assistant and later as a laboratory assistant in the Electronics Laboratory. While being a laboratory assistant, I also help out with the Nanodevices research lab with organic light emitting diode (OLED) research. From my courses and assistantship experience, I got my “feet wet” with project work, practical experience in both electronics and nanodevices lab, and improve on my communication skills on-the-job.

In my third year, it’s now time to start looking for an internship at a company, my friend and I contacted our academic advisor and he introduced us to his friend at BPPT, who later became my thesis supervisor and manager. The first meeting was intriguing, there were many things we could explore, we had 8 people working for the thesis at the same time. It was a nice way to experiment, as an electronics engineering student, I was tasked with two different project, one to study pre-amplifier for a hydrophone (microphone used underwater) and one to modify a gas pump power supply for a CO2 measurement installation.

After my internship, I have two choice to either do my bachelor thesis with BPPT or do it with the research group, continuing work with OLED. Eventually, I ended up continuing with the hydrophone project for my bachelor thesis, I played around with Raspberry Pi, Linux, and PCB design. However, I was still helping out in the OLED project, sometimes just to be a second person/operator in the lab, helping out with Atomic Force Microscope measurement or I-V measurement. After finishing my thesis, I ended up working at BPPT, and continued to work there for 4 years.

From my final two years, I was able to capitulate on my strengths, starting to trust my intuition, and improved my presentation skills. There are also countless of advices I received from my manager, who I considered the best mentor since apparently we’re both an INTP according to MBTI test. Learning from his experience was very valuable for me, some of the advices I value the most are:

  1. Have a good knowledge: nowadays, it doesn’t mean that you have to know everything, this can be done by taking good notes, keeping updated to news, and know where to search for these information.
  2. Have a good intuition: this comes with more experience, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, but keep a log of your mistakes, know what to improve, eventually you will gain this intuition.
  3. Plan your work well: this also comes with experience, and I still struggle with this. The idea is that engineers are (supposed to be) paid high hourly rates. By planning your work well, you can justify your work, give better estimate to management, and assign help from other engineers/technicians.
  4. Present your work well: this can come in both flavors, for academic setting, making a good written report and also writing a paper would be ideal, but for industrial setting, this usually means preparing a presentation for the management.
  5. Be loyal to the people, not the company: this is more of office politics, but I suppose, at the end the company will be pursuing their own best interest. However, the bond we make with other people in our team, we should maintain this good relation.

After 2-3 years working, I was convinced that the career I wanted to pursue is not available in Indonesia, which was even more obvious when the pandemic started. I was quite lucky to be in a governmental research agency, they would still employ me, but it was clear that it was time for me to start my studies. This was also motivated by an encounter I had during my time working and the many discussions with senior researchers who studied abroad. With my manager’s and my academic advisor’s recommendation, I was admitted to study abroad.

Now, I’m making a new shift towards a career as a MEMS engineer, I will take all the learnings I’ve made and hopefully find myself a good mentor in the process. My journey is still starting and I’m looking forward for other chance encounters I may have. All in all, I’m very grateful for all the work experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve worked with. Hopefully, I can still continue to maintain good relations with those who have given me a chance to grow with them.

Compare Yourself to Who You Were Yesterday

“Will there be a mandatory history course on campus?” asked a 15 year old Josef during a presentation by his high school alumni. During high school, I’ve always found myself failing the subject and having no interest to study history at all, except to retake the exams. Now, I feel like I’m in a different mental capacity, as I finished my Norwegian History course and exam. Although one may credit the better education system in Norway than Indonesia, but having the right attitude towards learning would be more important. I take this moment to ponder and think about what I have done in the past 10 years.

Although I was never behind in my studies, I would still call myself an underachiever. People who knew me as a child would probably assume I’m a studious person, although my parents can attest that this was not the case. I was one of the kid who would just study enough to pass their exams, and do any other things they enjoyed, for me it was computer games, singing, and occasionally playing the piano/keyboard. Fortunately for me, I never thought that I’d be good in any of them, preventing me from getting side-tracked from my studies. At this point, I was just a shy, sometimes goofy kid, who didn’t know better what to do. Images below would show a low-resolution of my goofiness in high school and middle school.

I had no idea what career to pursue, I didn’t really know what major to choose. At the end of my high school years, Electrical Engineering was very popular, I figured I was good with Physics, especially Electricity. This was a recurring theme during this period of my life, following what is perceived to be good, not out of self-motivation but from other people’s point-of-view. If I were to choose another field where I have no fundamental competence to go through the field, I would’ve been in shambles. However, I was glad to have the supportive friends to help me went through college smoothly.

When I graduated, I began to understand what I’m actually good at, solving problems, discussion, and a bit later in my professional experience, present and pitching my ideas. I wouldn’t have expected this development to happen. I had always thought of myself to be a timid person, everyone said I was a nice guy, but I didn’t know why and what kind of person I was. As I gained more experience, had more exposure and had to deal with more people. I knew how to leverage my personality, to be kind but not a pushover, to try and be confident, but not cocky. I could feel I was learning more about myself, and improving little by little, until I find myself blocked from learning.

I’ve gone through my life not realizing I had a childhood trauma that needed to be fixed, up until one point, one issue could trigger my trauma and kept me down. Trauma-healing was an important milestone in my progress, I was able to address my trauma, dismiss the problem before it went too far. I talked to a psychologist and was able to pinpoint my problem, I’ve always put other people as a priority before myself. Now that I’m abroad by myself, I have taken ownership of what I do, what I learn, and what I love, this has been a great healing process for me.

As I’m writing this, I’m rediscovering myself, what my hobbies are, what my interests are, what my goals in live are. I’ve stopped caring too much about what other people think of me. Rediscovering the kid in me, while also acknowledging I have come along way since 10 years ago. I still have to continue reshaping myself, loving myself, and proceed with what I love for the years to come. Perhaps, when you meet me 10 years later, I’ll be yet another person with different energy and outlook in life.

Learning from the Finns and Norwegians

Soon, I’ll finish my second semester in Universitetet i Sørøst-Norge (USN), a part of my two years Erasmus+ program in Smart Systems Integrated Solutions (SSIs), where I study in Aalto (Finland), USN (Norway), and BME (Hungary). Although both Finland and Norway share some similarity, there’s a slight difference in the educational system. Both offer free education up until Master’s for their citizens, while Norway’s universities are also free for foreigners.

In USN, there is a quota of 50% reserved for those with a Bachelor’s degree from Norway. In Aalto, with all students concentrated in Otaniemi, Espoo, we see a more diverse student community and exchange students, while in USN, you don’t see many international students. In both countries and in both cities (Horten and Espoo), virtually everyone speaks English, so there’s never any language barriers, and in case of Norwegians, you can actually pick up some Norwegian words on your first day. Finnish, on the other hand, is much harder.

In both universities, it feels like the curriculum has been polished in a way that it’s beneficial for the students to understand basic concepts and apply them. Proper care has been made by the professors, with practical projects and lab works, feedbacks and report writing skills that may be a good arsenal for our future career. I would highlight Aalto’s close ties with the industry where we can learn practical MEMS design and case studies from actual industry leaders. This was very insightful and provided the necessary motivation for the subsequent studies, e.g. in USN, where we study more practical microfabrication, measurement techniques and multiphysics modelling. In Vestfold, Norway, there are many electronics industry such as GE Vingmed and Kongsberg, leading in acoustics for medical and maritime purposes, respectively.

Education in Norway, or what we went through in USN was nothing to scoff at. It’s the spring semester, we have evenly spread lectures and assignments, so more time to study and also travel. However, the hard part was the exam week, where we sit for four hours in the final exam, which accounts for most or 100% of our grade. They take the exams very seriously in Norway, there are external examinators and papers are handed in anonymously, minimizing bias. Plagiarism and cheating is also punished severely here. In Aalto, we had more and tougher assignments than USN, but they also contribute towards the grade, making the exams less horrifying.

With harder exams and lesser assignments burden than Aalto, I knew that I had to change my strategy for studies. Particularly in the measurements class, after a quick look of the syllabus and the plethora of different measurement techniques, there was no way to study them all in the final week before exam. For this, I decided to frequently take notes and revise them and review with problem sets and discuss them with peers. For multiphysics modelling, we had many maths and physics to go through, deliberate practice and understanding the assignments were crucial to apply the concepts and the design project was also a big plus. All in all, notetaking during lectures and reviewing often was my key strategy and wouldn’t be possible without my iPad that I decided to buy early in the first semester.

As an Indonesian, these two countries’ educational systems were new to me, but in a good way. Higher quality teaching through industrial ties, well-defined curriculum, maintaining a good honesty policy, and a good student culture provides us the tools to network, building up knowledge, and practical skills for our future careers. Electronics industry, specifically MEMS / microsystems industry is thriving in both of these countries. As someone who is passionate in sensing, electronics, and micro/nano fabrication, the studies have been interesting. My SSIs journey has been a joyful ride, and I’m looking forward for my summer internship in Aalto and my next semester in Hungary.

On Returning to Indonesia: A Reflection

Earlier this year, the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo called out a talented data science expert from NU, Ainun Najib to return to Indonesia. This shoutout by the president sparked some conversations regarding whether or not diaspora should return and build back.

Although most people recognize this move as a gimmick, which is quite common for the current government. We need to also recognize that there are some efforts in the Indonesian research / innovation agency to provide livelihood and space to research for these returning individuals. Grants for research is now more transparent and competitive, but after a rough overhaul, the new BRIN agency is expected to have “growing pains” for a while.

However, when we’re talking about combined efforts between government, university, and industry working hand-in-hand for an innovation pipeline, it goes without saying that the innovation framework in Indonesia are not so desirable. There are still plenty of work to be established with common understanding between these stakeholders.

This lead me to ponder and reflect on my position as an Indonesian student abroad. Although currently I don’t have any bargaining chip, but one must stop and think about the future and the trends. I had the privilege to go through tertiary education and now to study micro systems and nanotechnology for Master’s.

My program trains me to be familiar with micro-systems, more commonly known as MEMS, starting from the material sciences fundaments, fabrication process and measurements + characterization, packaging, and system level design. In a way, we’re studying the whole value chain of a MEMS based sensor.

Higher precision inertial sensors for automotive safety features, self-driving cars, or even body movement in VR may be the driving force for the sensing industry. After one year of study, I would say that what I would probably do after graduation is to work somewhere within these value chain. In my case, I am quite leaning towards the design and fabrication of such MEMS sensors.

Now this brings me back to my earlier point, what should be my ideal steps for the future if I’m committing to this career path. For most people, staying in Europe would probably the obvious choice. However, there are many reasons to return to Indonesia: family, food, and comfort among other reasons.

Staying in Europe has its challenges, being in a foreign environment would always put us some steps behind locals with better networks and know-hows. Going back to Indonesia would mean to “wear many hats” e.g., doing research, lobbying our leaders for support, making industrial partners, and finding the right human resources. Although the first three are nothing to scoff at, sometimes in Indonesia, we find it hard to find great people that would work well with us.

For my case, there is also an ethics dilemma. My education is paid by the EU and I am not obliged to return. However, with a working experience background in BPPT (Indonesian research agency, now merged to BRIN), seeing some intricacies for R&D landscape for some strategic projects in Indonesia, this was my main driving force to pursue my masters. Hoping to find a way to better help these sustainable and strategic projects should I return, is mentioned in my motivation letter. This would speak volume about myself, if I choose to abandon without proper reflection.

Therefore, I’m writing this to help articulate my thoughts on how I ponder the changing landscape, before and after I begin my studies. While I was applying, me and many others in my cohort were hoping to learn more in the latter end of the value chain. That is more towards system level designs and hardware/software engineering. We had to learn more MEMS related courses than we initially thought. It was quite perfect for me, since my head of lab (dec.) taught MEMS in University of Indonesia, I could build on top of these existing concepts.

From the study itself, now I’m facing a paradigm shift, from being an “Application Engineer” to “Component Design Engineer”. This obviously requires different skillsets and strengths, which we are addressing step-by-step in the first year. This also corresponds well with the commonly head belief in the European education system, that what we learn here should open more doors and opportunity than closing them. An optimistic side of me is strongly dissident with the commonly held Asian view of being a super-specialist at what you do.

Being a MEMS Design Engineer would mean to incorporate different disciplines, like many other designers in different fields. The goal is to make a well-functional and useful product, and use whatever tools in your arsenal to make it happen. There’s an art to this, even when you’re essentially doing computational extensive workloads, people would develop an intuition as they become more experienced. This is also true for designers in other field!

At this point, I’ve established that there’s a change in my way of thinking through my education and hopefully will also be matched by my skillsets. Surely, a career change should not matter if I were to return and build values back home. An “Application Engineer” may perform better if they are able to observe the problem directly and provide better solution. Although such case would probably be true for a Design Engineer, there’s something more important, the iterative process.

There’s a reason why electronics are blooming in Shenzhen, because that’s a good place to develop and design the actual electronics. Faster turnaround time between iteration saves costs for the industry. Same argument would probably be valid for the semiconductor industry. For high volume products, it would probably make sense to do it the same way, developing in a R&D fab with steps to scale up the production runs.

MEMS industry in a way was built on top of the semiconductor industry. At this point, after kicking out Fairchild Semiconductor during the Soeharto’s regime, having a new semiconductor industry back in Indonesia would probably be a pipe dream. Knowing how the Indonesian government hopes to align with the EV trends by providing the minerals, pretty much seals the deal for any semiconductor opportunities, at least for now.

I’m hopeful that there would probably a time where MEMS fab would be more feasible for smaller players, but as of now, I would probably think it’s better to start building network of “design engineers” than to return to Indonesia with limited research capabilities. Returning is not the only way to bring back value, sharing some experiences from the industry would also help motivate the next generations of students to undertake the same education.

This is how I would justify my perspective change on returning to Indonesia and how my studies and current understanding of global trends affected my judgement. I also recognize that I am writing this reflection with my limited understanding of the industry as a whole and also the political / innovation landscape of both BRIN and the government.

21 April 2022
Borre, Norway

MEMS dan Semester Pertama di Aalto

Sebentar lagi saya akan menyelesaikan semester pertama di Aalto University dalam studi S2 saya di program Smart Systems Integrated Solutions (SSIs) bagian dari Erasmus+. Semester depan saya akan melanjutkan studi di University of South Eastern Norway. Kesamaan Aalto dan USN adalah posisinya sebagai anggota laboratorium mikro-nano di negaranya masing-masing, di mana anggotanya adalah kelompok industri dan universitas. Secara khusus, kami di Aalto University mendapatkan ilmu terkini dari pakar industri di bidang microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) dan dasar-dasar perekayasaan (engineering) untuk bidang teknik elektro, seperti elektronika berkelanjutan (Sustainable Electronics), rancangan untuk reliabilitas (Design for Reliability), material dan integrasi mikrosistem (Materials and Microsystems Integration), dan Translational Engineering Forum.

Produk elektronik terkini seperti telepon seluler pintar (smartphone) adalah akumulasi dari teknologi yang sudah dikembangkan, salah satunya adalah MEMS. Melalui sensor dan aktuator MEMS, kamera, mikrofon, accelerometer, dan gyroscope dapat diproduksi dengan skala besar dan ukuran yang kecil sehingga dapat diintegrasikan dalam satu produk. Saya mendapatkan informasi tentang MEMS saat kuliah di UI, oleh Dr. Agus Tamsir (Alm.) kepala laboratorium elektronika, saat mengambil kelas MEMS yang diampu beliau. Bidang ini sangat menarik dan membuka angan-angan saya untuk belajar lebih lanjut, beliau juga menyampaikan bahwa jarang sekali MEMS diajarkan di level S1, tetapi kami boleh melihat beberapa dasar dan konsep teoritis di balik MEMS. Hal ini sangat berguna untuk membantu transisi saya belajar MEMS di Aalto.

Belajar MEMS di Aalto, saya banyak mendengarkan langsung kuliah tamu dari pakar industri seperti dari Murata Finlandia, VTT, dan Vaisala. Ternyata pengembangan MEMS di Finlandia yang dipimpin oleh kelompok industri mikro-nano ini luar biasa, Namun, pelajaran di sini lebih komprehensif, wajar karena merupakan kelas di level S2, kami diberi tugas dan arahan untuk mencoba merancang desain MEMS accelerometer sederhana, probing exercise, yang di fasilitasi oleh Murata. Saat mempelajari dan merancang perangkat ini, kami pun dipersilakan mengontak langsung dosen tamu tersebut melalui e-mail. Menurut saya, kelas MEMS ini adalah salah satu kelas berkesan, di mana kita bisa belajar dari pemain besar di bidang MEMS, mendapat bimbingan langsung dari mereka, untuk membantu pemahaman konsep ini.

Akhir kata, menurut saya program SSIs terutama kelas di Aalto University sangat menarik. Kalau ada yang tertarik untuk belajar tentang smart systems, ataupun MEMS, saya sangat merekomendasikan program ini. Pengalaman belajar dari pakar, rekan mahasiswa yang telah dipilih secara ketat, dan beasiswa untuk studi di tiga negara merupakan pengalaman sekali seumur hidup.

Depression, Coping Mechanism, and Mental Health

This is a short story on my experience dealing with depression. Please take care of yourself if you’re feeling down before you implode, or explode.

I have a childhood trauma and problem that’s been holding me back for a long time. I have been choosing to ignore it for the past years. I was so good at hiding this, I have maintained a front of being a goody-two-shoes throughout. Persevering, suppressing my emotions, were the ideal solution to me at that time. While I hate to use the term toxic masculinity, I acknowledge that there were notion in traditional masculinity where showing emotion = showing weakness, and this is definitely not true.

One of the reasons that my depression doesn’t seem to affect me in larger part of my student life was because one of my coping mechanism is learning a new hobby, or studying subjects that I love. It may be weird to mention that I may find deriving formulas to be a good way to unwind, a good challenge as an escape from harsh reality. I am not necessarily good at this but I do see this as a fun thing to do, just like how I was very bad at Counter Strike (the online game), but kept on doing it until I was half-decent.

In a traditional Batak culture, I would’ve been the one who would receive all the attention, spoiled rotten, and all that you would expect from a patriarchal culture. However, that was not the case for me and I’ve felt like I wasn’t so loved, unless I’m sick. Although, I would say that I’m probably not necessarily smarter than my sister, but my coping mechanism and my timid personality did help me go through the childhood trauma way better. I could see my sister crumbling in her teenage years, but I had no such breakdown, or so I thought.

Growing up, I was more of like a black sheep, but in another perspective, I was somehow considered the exemplary sibling. Truth was, I’ve never felt loved as I mentioned, except my sick days. Long story short, I graduated from college, started working, I love what I do, but it would’ve been a lie if I said it was an easy work. I could learn a lot from my job and I was able to eventually got admitted to study abroad. Now, I admit, this doesn’t sound like a story of someone who claimed had suffered from depression.

The childhood trauma of not being loved, being abandoned, was actually never healed during my teenage years. I have considered myself to be a helpful person, but when depression starts seeping, I’ve felt so down that I was unable to do anything productive and in times, became destructive to myself, and maybe to others. I imploded from all the pressure that I had to go through, preparation to move to Finland, family drama, and finishing up my work before I leave. I imploded.

My sister was very helpful during my rock bottom, I was able to talk to a therapist, and I was able to pin-point my issue. I was glad in the end that I have addressed my mental health, I was stretching myself way too thin, trying to help everyone and do everything in my power, but I forgot to take care of myself. Fueled by the deep-rooted trauma, feeling unloved, unappreciated, it got the best of me. Although there are still circumstances that I still regret and despise to this day, I am glad that I was able to get help sooner than later.

I had a big responsibility in my head before I go, but I find it okay to admit that I weren’t up to it. However, I find some joy that while I was suffering under this depression, I find solace in learning something new: remote sensing and GIS. I don’t know if I will ever use this thing I did as a hobby that helped me through the depression phase. But, last week I received a notification that my paper, a result of my work throughout the process, was accepted and I can do a small revision for the figure, but otherwise it’s fine. This paper will forever be a monument of how I tried to overcome my depression and it’s okay to have your own coping mechanism.

I know that this will be an on-going process, I will learn to forgive and I think my time away from the problems have given me a chance to re-think and plenty to work with myself. Time will heal everything, and I am certain that living alone will be a good part of my healing process. First and foremost, I will make sure that I am in a good mental health, going forward with my study and research.

This blog post was not written as a motivation of some sort, but was to tell a story of how I am fighting back against my depression, feeling of inadequacies, and how I plan on going forward. If you feel down and it’s not going away, please seek help, it would be a very good idea.

Kondisi Polusi Udara di Indonesia

Di tengah PPKM, kondisi udara di Jakarta tidak lebih baik dari sebelumnya. Bergantinya musim dan berkurangnya hujan menyebabkan partikel-partikel pencemar udara terakumulasi. Sudah banyak studi yang menunjukkan bahwa PM2.5 berbahaya untuk kesehatan masyarakat, apalagi saat adanya pandemi COVID-19 yang menyerang sistem pernapasan. Ada juga studi yang mencoba menghubungkan konsentrasi PM2.5 di area urban berpopulasi tinggi sebagai salah satu mode penularan virus SARS-CoV-2.

Untuk memantau kondisi atmosfer, Uni Eropa melalui misi Copernicus mempunyai satelit Sentinel-5P untuk memantau kondisi atmosfer dan berbagai gas pencemar. Data Sentinel-5P ini juga dipakai oleh ECMWF untuk menghasilkan data model kondisi atmosfer, salah satunya data PM2.5. Model numerik untuk PM2.5 dapat dibuat menggunakan data Aerosol Optical Depth dan data stasiun pemantauan PM2.5.

Sebelumnya di sekitaran Jakarta ada tiga sensor PM2.5, satu milik BMKG di Kemayoran, dua dimiliki oleh Kedubes Amerika Serikat, sekarang Nafas Jakarta merupakan penyedia data PM2.5 terbesar di Jakarta. Inisiatif baik seperti ini, mungkin dapat direplikasi di daerah-daerah lainnya, mungkin di tempat yang rentan terhadap kebakaran lahan gambut di Sumatra maupun Kalimantan.

Gambar 1. ECMWF Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service PM2.5 Data in Indonesia (https://indonesian-atmosphere.herokuapp.com)

Sementara inisiatif urun daya data polusi udara mulai berkembang, saya mencoba membuat sebuah aplikasi sederhana, mengambil data dari ECMWF CAMS dan menampilkan ke sebuah peta sederhana. Saya menambahkan data pembangkit listrik tenaga uap (batu bara) dan data PM2.5. Semoga percobaan singkat ini dapat bermanfaat dan bisa membuka diskursus atau diskusi lebih lanjut tentang polusi udara. Apakah mungkin kita membuat model CAMS untuk Indonesia dengan data PM2.5 di lapangan dan penginderaan jauh dari Sentinel-5P?