Presenting at 2014 International Symposium on Micro-NanoMechatronics and Human Science (MHS) in Nagoya University, Japan

Assalamualaikum and hello there!

Presenting at conferences is part and parcel of being a postgraduate student. In my case, all the conferences I have attended so far were held locally in Malaysia. I was sort of 'saving the best for last' actually. I had planned to present my papers at international conferences during my final year. Also, during the first two years of my study I was busy collecting and analyzing data.

When I received the CFP for the MHS2014 conference in April 2014, I was immediately hooked. Perhaps because Nagoya University is place where my supervisor, Dr Hanafiah Yussof had studied for his PhD and post-doc.

So Nagoya University, here I come!

Alhamdulillah, two papers from my research team in HuRoBs, UiTM were accepted for the conference and will automatically be published as online proceedings on IEEEExplore.

Mohd Azfar Miskam, Syamimi Shamsuddin, Mohd Ridzuan Abdul Samat, Hanafiah Yussof, Husna Ahmad Ainudin and Abdul Rahman Omar. "Humanoid robot NAO as a teaching tool of emotion recognition for children with autism using the Android app." In Micro-NanoMechatronics and Human Science (MHS), 2014 International Symposium on, pp. 145-149. IEEE, 2014. 

Mohd Ridzuan Abdul Samat, Syamimi Shamsuddin, Mohd Azfar Miskam and Hanafiah Yussof. "Development of face recognition algorithm for enhancement of social communication of robotic assistive autism therapy." In Micro-NanoMechatronics and Human Science (MHS), 2014 International Symposium on, pp. 325-329. IEEE, 2014.

For both papers, the presentations were scheduled in the last parallel sessions of the day on the 10th and 11th November 2014.

The fourth presenter for the MP2-2 Session on 10th November

The third presenter for the TP2-2 Session on 11th November

On the first day of the conference (10th November 2014, Monday), I took the subway to Nagoya Daigaku station (Meijo Line). The conference was held at the Noyori Conference Hall in Nagoya University in Higashimaya Campus.

Nagoya Daigaku subway station

Alhamdulillah, safely arrived at the venue :)

Finding the conference hall was easy since there were plenty of signage to guide participants to the venue.

Location of the Noyori Conference Hall from the exit number 2 of the Nagoya Daigaku subway station

The conference program actually had began on 9th November with the 2014 International Micro Robot Maze Contest. Paper presentations were scheduled on the second and third day of the conference.

Full program for 10th November 2014

Beautiful and windy morning at Nagoya University

Registration: I was the first participant to arrive at the hall :p

Welcoming remarks from Prof Tatsuo Arai, Osaka University

Opening remarks from Prof Toshio Fukuda, Nagoya University, Japan. He is the Honorary Chair of MHS2014 

Papers accepted for the conference were divided into paper and also poster presentations. After the plenary talks were concluded, lunch began at 12.00 pm. Then, the conference agenda continued with poster exhibition at 12.50 pm. I got the opportunity to look at research findings by other participants who were mostly postgraduate students from Nagoya University and Osaka University.

Lots of brochures on future IEEE conferences in Japan and all over the world for 2015

A poster by one of the participants

Poster by Mohammad Azzeim bin Mat Jusoh, a lecturer from Faculty of Mechanical Engineering UiTM who is currently studying in Nagoya University

A momento picture with my supervisor, Dr Hanafiah Yussof

En Mohammad Azzeim, myself, En Amiruddin Fikri and Dr Sukarnur Che Abdullah: the UiTM delegates

With Prof Toshio Fukuda

Finally, it was time for my parallel session to start at 4.45 pm. I would like to thank the organizer for giving the opportunity for me to be a session chair, together with Professor Kosuke Segiyama.

Important notes for the session chair

Me as the session chair :)

My turn to present my paper titled 'Humanoid robot NAO as a teaching tool of emotion recognition for children with autism using the Android app'

Explaining about the interfaces in the Android App to control NAO robot

Question and answer session

Alhamdulillah, the first day of the conference and paper presentation went well. A few questions were raised by the audience and I managed to answer the best way possible according to my knowledge.

The second day of the conference also dawned beautifully at the Nagoya University. This time around I brought my sister along to give her some initial exposure on the looks and contents of an academic conference.

My beloved sister: companion and photographer for the day :)

In front of the conference hall

Presenting my second paper titled 'Development of face recognition algorithm for enhancement of social communication of robotic assistive autism therapy'

I was truly happy after presenting both papers. This was my first time presenting in an international conference outside Malaysia. The wonderful experience gained will definitely be useful in future events, insya Allah.

Not forgetting, the CFP for the next MHS is already out. To all interested researchers, you are most welcome to send in your papers and be part of MHS2015 next year.