A*TS Results

Posted by HELiX

Dear all A*TS participants,I am pleased to inform all of you that the A*TS 2008 finalists have emerged from the competitive pool of 26 participants!

After the Shortlisting Round on 19 Mar, the panel had nominated the following participants as the Finalists: (Not in any particular order of merit)

1. Kok Xiu Ling Florence
2. Teo Ruijie Darius
3. Chew Tian Wei
4. Yin Jian Yang David
5. Seah Wei Ling
6. Zhao Ye
7. Chua Meng Shuen
8. Anish Agarwal

Do join me to congratulate the finalists.

I will be working closely with these 8 finalists for the Final Judging (24 April, Thur) and the Ceremony (26 April,Sat).

For the rest of you, see you at the Ceremony too. After all, all of you are the SSEF winners!

Have a GOOD FRIDAY ahead.

I’m actually quite surprised that there are only 26 participants for A*TS, when the number of people winning something (from Merit to Gold) at SSEF is easily two to three times that number. It goes to show two things:

1) Most SSEF winners are foreigners who do not qualify.

2) Most SSEF winners are not interested to be researchers.

I didn’t really expect to get anything out of A*TS anyway. The only name I recognise in that list is Zhao Ye, who is indeed really extraordinary with two SSEF Golds in two years. Plus, she’s going for ISEF this year. Plus plus, she’s sharing the same mentor as me.

I feel like a loser now.

Comments(0) 11:17 PM 3 March 2008

A*STAR Talent Search

Posted by HELiX

I happen to visit my blog from other computers, not because I’m that vain, but… y’know, just checking my tagboard and stuff.

Realised that it takes frustratingly long just to load the main page.

Didn’t really notice this problem with my MaxOnline 12000 connection, but the poor web designer in me fail to realise that there are other people with slower internet connection plans around >.<

Ah well. I’ll find some free time to remove certain elements of the page. Gonna cut down on a lot of graphics.

…

So, today was A*STAR Talent Search.

It’s just this competition affiliated to SSEF. The prize winners from SSEF were all shortlisted into it, provided that they’re Singaporeans and registered for it.

There’s nothing much to say actually.

You’re called into a room with a panel of judges, and you’re supposed to present your project within 3 minutes, instead of the 10-plus minutes allowed at SSEF.

I rushed through everything, fumbled quite a lot and generally screwed up. Also, my flu wasn’t helping. I couldn’t talk longer for 5 minutes without losing my voice, and had to kept drinking water in front of the judges.

The judges weren’t too nice too. They’d attack and find fault with your project all over, and I felt sorta relieved when the bell for the maximum time of 15 minutes was up. Happened to others, too.
I’m so not expecting to go through into the second round of interview, much less winning anything.

That is all.

Comments(0) 8:50 PM 3 March 2008

Two Down

Posted by HELiX

Oh well. It’s like that.

I didn’t make into the school bowling team for A Division. Of course I still get to participate as a reserve or as a pacer, but I don’t really get a proper opportunity to bowl for the school.

But I’m not too upset at all. It was one of those I Saw It Coming things.

Picking up competitive bowling a year ago, I know there’s only so far I can go. There are 17 boys in the CCA, and only 12 places are available. Naturally, all 12 selected have been bowling for over 4 years since their secondary school days, and were school team bowlers before. Would have been quite harsh on any of these bowlers should a person like me, with a year’s experience, comes up and beat them.

A little bit for my ego, but generally I’d would have been able to make it into any other school teams, or say, even some years of ACJC.

It just happened that this year features, to quote my coach, the strongest team he has ever coached. Everyone of that top 12 are absolutely good bowlers, and there’s no way I can get in with everyone hitting 170-ish, 180-ish averages.

With the team all out to claim the championship, bowling trainings are four times a week, no less.

Now I think to seriously consider how often I should attend.

…

In other news, gaming isn’t looking so good for me either.

WCG just released the official games for this year last week.

Unreal Tournament 3, much to my surprise, isn’t included.

Official WCG 2008 PC Games:
• Half-Life®: Counter-Strike 1.6 (5 v. 5 Team FPS )
• Starcraft®: Brood War: (1 v. 1 RTS)
• WarCraft® III: The Frozen Throne (1 v. 1 RTS)
• Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath (1 v. 1 RTS)
• Age of Empires® III: The Asian Dynasties (1 v. 1 RTS)
• FIFA Soccer 08 (1 v. 1 Sports)
• Need For Speed ProStreet (Xbox 360 in US & Canada) (1 v. 1 Racing)
• Carom3D (1 v. 1 Casual)
• Red Stone (4 v. 4 Team MMORPG)

Official WCG 2008 Xbox 360 Games:
• Halo® 3 (4 v. 4 Team FPS)
• Project Gotham Racing® 4 (1 v. 1 Racing)
• Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock (1 v. 1 Music)
• Virtua Fighter® 5 (1 v. 1 Fighting)

Official WCG 2008 Mobile Game:
• Asphalt 3: Street Rules (1 v. 1 Racing)

That means, no competitive gaming this time either. Oh well.

…

All these, on top of being unable to attend AstroChallenge, points to only one thing:

I should just study this year.

Comments(0) 12:44 AM 3 March 2008

iSee

Posted by HELiX

A TUAW reader has managed to spot an iPod onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, which is currently floating around in a giant vacuum.

The hawk-eyed reader spotted the iPod from official NASA photos, which showed the device, barely visible, through a cabin window. Interestingly, iPods cannot be taken into space willy-nilly. In fact, the usual lithium battery must be replaced with specially designed alkaline alternatives to ensure safety standards are met. That seems like a lot of planning to us, which is part of the reason we won’t be leaving planet Earth anytime soon. Another equally valid reason is because we are not qualified astronauts.

If you are having difficulty recovering from the shock of this new information, please sit down and drink some water. Jump for a zoomed out shot of the space shuttle, which indicates the founder was either very bored or has awesome Superman-like eyesight. You decide.

Comments(0) 12:38 AM 3 March 2008

Week of Astronomy Competitions

Posted by HELiX

This comes really late, but oh well.

The one week of holidays is also known for the ridiculous squeeze of two astronomy competitions in 4 days. A first in more than a decade of astronomy competitions.

And the truth is, I believe most people would find it better this way.

Look at it this way. After going through 10 astronomy competitions, one of the points that turns me off the most is that everytime there’s a competition, it’s mugging all over again.

A competition in February? Okay, 2 weeks of mugging.
A competition in March? Okay, another 2 weeks of mugging.
A competition in June? Okay, yet another 2 weeks of mugging.

That amounts up to a crazy 6 weeks of astronomy mugging a year — probably more time than I spend mugging for any major examination.

It’s fun for the first few times, but after a year or two, it gets sickening to know that you’ll have to go through the entire astronomy syllabus again and again for each competition.

So here’s RJC Astrigue Challenge and NYP Astronomy Quiz falling within one day apart from each other. Good and bad points, but from my point of view, I’d love it.

So first, was RJC Astrigue Challenge on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Quite eventful. Talked to Wei Lin quite a bit. The weather wasn’t being welcoming and I found out that RJC was [badly] architectured (despite being recently built) to have many waterfalls, rapids, rivers and other interesting waterforms during a downpour. Or maybe it’s intentional.

Truth be told, I suddenly became the only one unsurprised by an RGS win.

But then again, it took some luck and misfortunes on BP’s side.

The first time RJC Astrigue was held back in 2005, I thought it was a joke. My initial reaction was, “Oh wait. RJC is having their own astronomy competition? Invited us, BP? What is this, ex-RI guys trying to get back at BP?”

Turns out, it very an extremely impartial competition for the past 2 years. Surely the questions were set by ex-RI guys, and RI being specialised at what they specialised in, they often love to have questions which stuns BP but do-able for HCI and RI. Not that I’m complaining though.

This year, I don’t mean that it’s terribly biased, but one can’t help but agree that the finals were a bit… you know.

For example:

“The time is up! And BP Team 2 has not given an answer. 5 points will be deducted.”
“The time is up! Does RI Team 1 have an answer? That’s correct! 5 points will be awarded.”
“The time is up! Does RGS Team 1 have an answer? That’s correct! 5 points will be awarded.”

Fortunate that RGS won, though. BP may have been the rightful winner with over 30-50 points unawarded for reasons unexplained, but RG surely deserves the win for an extremely commendable effort. A first, I believe.

The dinner following Astrigue Challenge was… well, pretty much like all other post-astronomy competitions dinner.

BUT FINALLY, REVENGE.

…

And 2 days later, I missed the NYP quiz because of Bowling Camp.

Ah well. Although I didn’t get to see how well BP did, but surely getting 1st is some good effort.

Well done, Edrei and team!

Comments(0) 12:27 AM 3 March 2008

Back from Camp

Posted by HELiX

It’s going to be tediously difficult to do a detailed recount of Bowling Camp, and a painful bore for the people who read it. So I won’t do that this time.

But Bowling Camp was awesome!

Most of the bowlers currently have personal messages on WLM along the lines of ‘I LOVE AC BOWLING’, ‘I <3 AC BOWLERS’, ‘ac bowling rocks’ and ‘love you guys!’ among may others, which makes me wonder why mine isn’t.

The first round of school team roll offs (selection) took place over the 2 days in camp. 5 games and 3 hours a day. The top 6 scorers of the 10 games will be selected first.

Knowing that it was quite impossible to make it into the Top 6, I didn’t really worry much, but for those at the top…

I mean, look. The cut off score for 6th position was 185 pinfalls average.

And then we have our coach declaring that the current AC team is the strongest he has ever managed. Which means, the chances of getting into the team are at an all-time low for average bowlers like myself.

Second round of roll offs to select the final 6 is coming up. I’ll try for that. And from the looks of it, I can only hope for position 12th, which is extremely unlikely enough.

…

We had it at Orchid Country Club in Yishun. 3 Days, 3 Nights. Uh, yeah, go home at night.

$380. But it was covering the costs of 4 shirts, 1 jacket, buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner, hotel-type rooms and everything else.

But this year wouldn’t really be the best. Last year they went KL, and next year it’s planned to be Hong Kong or Australia.

I happen to be in this miserable year of Orchid Country Club, Singapore.

…

Paintball was absolutely fun.

It’s kinda scary though. Surely there are protections for your torso and face, but everywhere else is exposed.

The first few groups who went in came out with these advice:

“The first shot that hits you is damn pain.”

“It’s like a sharp pain which you can’t move for a few seconds. When you get hit first, it’s not too bad. And then the pain comes in a second later and it’ll hurts like shit.”

“It’s an experience to get shot and feel the pain.”

The objective of paintball wasn’t too blast your enemies until they bleed their eyeballs out. You’ll have to shoot down some targets, and then run towards the middle where you’re totally exposed to grab a rather heavy box, to bring back to your base. Out of the team of 5, I was the Runner. Meaning, I’m the one who’s supposed to run into the middle of the crossfires, grab the box and run back. Not easy. Once you get hit once, you need to drop the box and restart from some ‘recovery hut’.

Oh and, you have only 50 ammo of balls for the entire 15 minutes.

I rushed in. Shot down both targets, ran to grab the box, and headed back to base. Eh. And we won the round in a record time.

And then I realised I shot finish all my ammo in that record time, which was something really stupid to do. What am I to do for the next 10 minutes then? I received additional ammo from my teammates who were nearly infinitely more conservative with the ammo than me.

This time, my objective was to… get shot. I didn’t bother about the box, but tried shooting people down. Instead, the other team went to grab the box and won the round.

The game ended.

And I didn’t get shot.

I felt stupid for being so good at taking cover. Dammit. I didn’t get the experience of being shot, other than the fragments of a shot ricocheted and hit me.

Some people developed quite serious injuries though. The bruises were terrible when the shot was a direct one at an unprotected area. They were quite big, and some people even reported troubles when they bathed later that night.

…

Amazing race was the final major event.

We had to traverse Singapore using only the MRT and bus, and of course, by foot.

About 6 hours of gameplay. Went from Yishun to Singapore River to Chinatown to Orchard to Chinese Garden to Botanic Garden to School and all.

Shouldn’t say much, since my team came in last.

Ah well!

…

AC Bowling FTW!

Comments(0) 4:49 AM 3 March 2008

Galileo Wins. 399 Years Late.

Posted by HELiX

I know I should be blogging about the bowling camp, but this deserves more attention.

Four centuries after Galileo Galilei was ordered by the Catholic Church to come to Rome and stand trial on suspicion of heresy, a statue of the Italian astronomer will be erected at the Vatican. 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, which celebrates 400 years since Galileo first used a telescope to study the heavens, and the Vatican plans to join in commemorating the anniversary. Galileo was condemned to house arrest by the Catholic Church in 1633 because his belief that the sun was at the center of the solar system, and not the Earth, contradicted the bible.

Comments(0) 2:22 AM 3 March 2008