waya | Yet another builder | Form library

NOTE:

I am new to MXNet.

It seems that the Gluon module is meant to replace(?) the Symbol module as the high level neural network (nn) interface. So this question specifically seeks an answer utilizing the Gluon module.

Residual neural networks (res-NNs) are fairly popular architecture (the link provides a review of res-NNs). In brief, res-NNs is an architecture where the input undergoes a (series of) transformation(s) (e.g. through a standard nn layer) and at the end is combined with its unadulterated self prior to an activation function:

So the main question here is "How to implement a res-NN structure with a custom gluon.Block?" What follows is:

1. my attempt at doing this (which is incomplete and probably has errors)
2. as subquestions highlighted as block questions.

Normally sub-questions are seen as concurrent main questions resulting in the post being flagged as too general. In this case, they are legit sub questions, as my inability to solve my main questions stems from these sub-questions and the partial / first-draft documentation of the gluon module is insufficient to answer them.

"How to implement a res-NN structure with a custom gluon.Block?"

First lets do some imports: