Gecko Man

Discovery channel is in fact one of my favourite channel on Astro. Having watched the repeated telecast today about the TV program called Prototype This, it gave me some general idea on what I want to write in this small potato blog. The Prototype This program for this week is about the idea of creating a device that can assist human in sticking to the wall more like the popular comic book superhero, Spiderman. They called it as a Geckoman to distinguish it from the Spiderman. They are divided into three groups, responsible for researching and creating the Geckoman device. What really amazed me is that, their culture of research in the US is quite stunning. At the initial level before they came up with the device, they pay a visit to certain universities in search for the previous or undergoing research so as to implement it to their cause. When they came to the universities, astonishingly these universities have the prototype in form of sticking robots. Even it is smaller in scale, I bet it can be improved further in the future.

What I observed from this program is that, the research culture in the context of scientific research in US is by far the most extensive and advanced. They even have a company in which specialized in design where we can submit our product design and they could come up with that prototype product in a jiffy using highly sophisticated machines.

Watching that series, made me realized that our scientific research culture is still lagging behind those in the western counterpart. Even though scientific research is not my forte, I guess the culture and procedures of scientific research is not much differs from the social research. It can be adapted further to enhance the quality of social research. From my 5 cents of thought, social research involved more intangible aspect where it plays with the attributes of the subject matter. As such, in real estate study research pertaining to the effect and cause of the interest rates towards property prices. These variables even though can be measured, but the effect is in intangible form. The relationship between variables is eventually attribute itself. That’s how I perceived social research. Being in the academic field seems to satisfy my hunger towards knowledge whereby I can achieved it through conducting research. It is hopeful that I am able to contribute in research field for the benefits of mankind in the future.

16 August 2009