CPin’s Blog

The article, “Plastic-eating Enzyme Could Eliminate Billions of Tons of Landfill Waste'' by The University of Texas at Austin (2022), revealed that researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed an enzyme variant that can accelerate the degradation of environmentally harmful plastics in hours or days instead of centuries. The researchers mainly focused on a type of plastic which is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a polymer most commonly found in consumer packaging and certain fibers and textiles. This enzyme variant was able to disintegrate the plastic into smaller parts (depolymerization) and then put it back together (repolymerization) which begins the upcycling process. The plastic-eating enzyme was created quite a while back in 2016 but it remains unused because it requires a high temperature to be broken down. This new and improved enzyme variant is proven superior in breaking down PET plastics more efficiently. Given the effectiveness and potential of t...

Dear Professor Blackstone My name is Chiu Pin, will be turning 23 years old this year, and currently, a first-year student studying civil engineering at the Singapore Institute of Technology. I am writing this introductory letter to help you get to know me better.  I was born and raised in a small town in Malaysia and moved to Singapore when I was 12 years old. Since then, I have witnessed the progress and growth of buildings in Singapore and have always been interested in being part of this city’s development, hence my pursuit of a degree in the construction industry. At first, I prepared myself for a career in architecture but quickly realized that engineering was a more practical choice for me because, rather than coming up with design ideas, I am more inclined to implement them. One of my biggest hobbies is watching movies and TV series. They tend to temporarily divorce you from reality and transfer you from your present state of mind to some other state of mind. They expose or...

“Without clear lines of communication, our ideas would stay within our own small development teams instead of becoming mature products. While this is obvious to those of us who have become experienced engineers, the real question is: Why is it lost to us when we are engineering students?”    — Akbar R Khan, Software Systems Engineer, USA, “Good Communication Is Essential...” (2014)   As discussed during the meeting. We feel communication skills are extremely important for engineers to maintain relevance in the industry. The experienced engineers are fully aware of how important it is to communicate as it is believed they went have went through the difficulties and understood the consequences in having unclear communications within the team. We We believe it is important to pitch out the individual ideations to procreate a better project. An engineer’s role is complex and it is difficult to come to the same consensus coming from different expertise. They encounter many peo...