Cool Stuff

CUP & COOKIES: Smart cup in which you can put 2-3 of your favourite cookies. You don't extra plates. It's made for right handed and left handed.

LOCK-CUP: Anti-Theft Coffee Cup. Are you tired of others stealing your coffee cup? Well now there's a solution. The Lock - Cup has a hole which prevents most people from using it. Only the owner of the cup can use his/hers shaped key to close the hole.

TRANSPARENT TOASTER: You love toast, but you always burn it? Than, this invention us for you. This transparent toaster allows you to see the bread while it is toasting so you just have to take it out when the colour is right. This idea is based on a transparent heating glass technology.

"THE THING" - INFANT PILLOW: The Zaky is an ergonomic infant pillow designed by a mom to mimic the size, weight, touch, and feel of her hand and forearm to help her baby with comfort, support, protection, and development. The Zaky can help calm your baby and help your baby sleep better through the night.

TRAVELER'S PHRASE BOOK T-SHIRT: If you are traveling a lot and don't always know the language of the country you are visiting, then this T-shirt is for you. It has a phrase book printed on it so just point a finger at the pictogram you need and then point it twice at the question mark, which means, "Where is it?" and in no time you have found what you were looking for­ or not.

LATEST DESIGN WAITER/WAITRESS TRAYS: Anatomic tray, for waiters. No more dropping trays. We just don't know it's comfortable.

New secondary school

I went to my future school a few days ago. Since none of my classmates are going to NUSH, everybody is unfamiliar to me, except some of my friends. Before I went to NUSH, I had already met some friends during maths olympiad training by RI and Hwa Chong. Some of them joined NUSH while others went to Hwa Chong, ACS or RI. Luckily, one of them (Jonathan Ang) is in the same class (103) with me, so I won't be so lonely. When we were in our classroom, everyone of us told everyone else their names. However, if you ask me to name them, I probably forgot most of them.

Trip to Malaysia

Usually, the trip to overseas is always the best, but this time it was the worst. Of course, we went to Malaysia (Malacca) by bus and not by plane. The bus had no games or anything for our entertainment. Luckily, we brought along our Gameboy. We took turns to play the Gameboy throughout the whole journey. Halfway through the journey, I felt a little giddy and went to sleep instead. When we had reached our destination, A'Famosa, I was overcome with giddiness and I vomitted after I alighted from the coach. Perhaps if you go to the A'Famosa Clubhouse, you might still be able to see my vomit. That was the second time I vomitted. The first time was during the bus ride to Genting, that's why I prefer taking a budget aeroplane to taking a bus.

We took a shuttle bus to our hotel, which I would never expect was a condo. The room was huge, just like my condo at home. There were even 2 twin beds and 2 queen/king-size beds. Compared to my previous trip to Taiwan, which has only 2 tiny little beds, the hotel is so much better. Yet, it was also quite cheap. Later, we went to Cowboy Town to do a little exploring. Then at 6, we went back to the clubhouse to have our buffet dinner.

After that, we went back to the Cowboy Town to watch the Carnival Show and fireworks.

That was just the first day. On the second day, we took the shuttle bus again to the Animal World Safari (mini zoo). First, we watched the elephant show. The elephants could really play basketball and soccer! (see the video clip below) Next, we went to another animal show with multi animals performing. There was a dog that could stand up and walk at the same time. Later, we went to the bird show where different kinds of birds performed different kinds of tricks. Next, we proceeded to watch another show called the wild wild west. It was a show about cowboys. After that, we took the shuttle bus back to our hotel. Well, actually, we did nothing afterwards.

Elephant playing basketball

Day 3, we had breakfast at Cowboy Town and buffet lunch at the clubhouse, before catching our coach back to Singapore. In case I might vomit again, I decided not to play the Gameboy and slept throughout most of the journey!

I am glad to be back to my home, at about 8 pm.

Fun Math

6A Gathering .. Photos!

Jeremy face-to-face with Wei Ren

Ma'am: Children, pay attention!!

Hai Xiao: See, no one is paying attention to Ma'am

Ahmad, why are you pointing your middle fingers? (jk)

It is chilly inside the pool ...

Faan: Do I look like a rabbit?

Red-eye freaks (click to see a bigger picture)

We are the pretty girls of 6A

Gene: I think I have a stomach ache.

Jes: I can smell something ...

Freda & Yen Yi snatching handphone

Class Gathering

There will be a class gathering for 6A'07 on 4th December (Tuesday) from 4pm to 10pm. For more details, look out for a mail in your letter box these few days. There will be an invitation sent to you from ma'am. Anyway, it will be held at my house, like the previous time. Venue: Queens Condominium Function Room, Stirling Road. Please bring your swimming suit + towel (do not go inside the pool with home clothes lest the security guard will scold) and an extra set of clothes as there will be water games!

The photo above was from Yu Hui's blog, taken during the last gathering.

I have also booked the badminton court from 7 - 9 pm. Be sure to turn up! I expect a wide turnout!

PSLE results

Hooray! I can't believe that I got 263 for my PSLE! I always thought that it would be 250. My sister got 265 last year. I actually want to beat her in the total aggregate. I think that I am just very lucky that this year's Maths and Science papers are so much more difficult that last year's and the English and Chinese are so much more easier. That is why I got 263. If I were to take last year's PSLE papers, I would get only 250. Last year, in order to get the EESIS scholarship, the PSLE aggregate must be at least 262. This year, it is 265, I think. I am so close into getting the scholarship. If only I have made lesser mistakes, I would have saved a few thousand dollars (to be exact, $14,400, i.e. $200 per month x 12 months x 6 yrs)!

Taipei

Click to see a bigger picture.

On the first day, we (Lim Li, my mother and I) caught the 5.15 pm SQ 28 flight. The flight took about 4.5 hrs to reach the Taiwan-Taipei Tao Yuan International Airport, and we reached the Chien Tan Overseas Youth Activity Centre (our hotel) at about 11 pm. So, we hardly did anything. My father, Lim Min, Derek and Jeremy Sim (Clarence's brother) took an earlier flight, since they were taking part in the WRO 2007 (World Robot Olympiad). I had no idea what they did earlier at the hotel (perhaps preparing for the competition).

Second day, the start of the competition. All of us went to the competition venue at National Taiwan University (NTU Sports Centre). Our robotics team was assigned the J03 booth. The team beside our booth was really awesome. They were from Philippines and I thought we had no chance against them. I just looked around to see what the other teams (from some 13 countries) were doing. By the way, I saw a robot that is able to solve 3x3 rubik's cube. I was really impressed. I also saw a robot with a "remote control". I tried to challenge the rubik's cube robot, but the robot had problems scanning the colours correctly. The judges soon came to our robotics team booth. Lim Min, Derek and Jeremy gave a presentation and demo of their fireman robot to the penal of 3 judges, who asked a lot of questions.

Our booth.





Our neighbour's booth from the Philippines which looked pretty impressive!


At about 5 pm, we left and returned to our hotel. At night, we walked to the Jian Tan Metro Station and visited the Shilin Market which was just across the station. We noticed that in Taipei, the cars didn't stop for the pedestrians even when the green man was flashing, it was so scary to cross the road. The green man flashed for 99 seconds for us to cross a short road (unlike in Singapore, which is like 10 seconds or so). The Shilin market was extremely crowded, I hated all the hustle and hustle of the market, and we quickly left after having our dinner. Derek and Jeremy "da-bao" the oyster mee-sua back.



Third day, competition was still going on. I challenged the rubic cube robot again. That time the robot worked. I won the first round. On the second round, I lost. My excuse was because the creator was the one who messed up the cube. Third round, I messed up the cube for the robot. I won. I went back to our booth. My father was trying to sell the omniwheels/holonomic wheels and the plego fields invented by him. At the end of the day, my father managed to sell ALL the holonomic wheels he brought (about 100 of them). During the prize giving ceremony, they announced the winners. Our team emerged second in the Open Category! If we got second, who got first? I'd give you a hint, it's from Philippines. It's not the team beside us (surprisingly they didn't win any medal), it's the team beside them. After the ceremony, we went to a National Palace Museum （故宫）. There's nothing much to talk about it, so I would just skip to the part when we went back to the hotel. Well, there's still nothing much to talk, so I'll talk about the next day.

Fourth day, we visited one of my mother's relatives. After that, we went to Taipei 101. It looked so grand and tall. It was one of the most famous buildings in Taiwan. Yet, inside it was just like any shopping mall. After that, we bought food from the Taipei Shilin market before going back to the hotel.




Taipei 101

Fifth day,(yay, I'm almost done) we went to the science centre... and I lost my specs. We searched high and low for it. We wasted so much time. If we didn't reach the airport on time, we would miss our flight home. We just gave up after a while and took a cab followed by coach to the airport. We reached home at exactly midnight.

The best thing about this trip was ... we got to play video games in the SIA aeroplane for a total of about 9 hours.

Rubik's cube

It took me quite a long time to master the 3x3x3 rubik's cube. Natasha can also solve it. I finally am able to remember the steps to do it. Initially it took me at least 5 minutes to complete it, now I can do it in about 3 minutes.

Just a few days ago, my mother bought me a 4x4x4 rubik's cube (Rubik's Revenge). I didn't ask her to, but she bought it anyway. It cost $23.90 while the 3x3x3 cost only from $1 (lousy quality) to $9.90 (Rubik original). The steps were rather complicated but I still managed to complete it. Now my record is about 10 minutes.

Yesterday, my mother bought another one. You've guessed it, it's 5x5x5 (Professor's Cube). There was no solution booklet that came with it and the cube itself was rather uneven or crooked, and difficult to turn. It cost $27.90! Every turn I made, my hand hurt. However, I applied some of the 4x4x4 rubik's cube rules to solve it. It took me like 3 hours to complete it for the first time! Now I can solve it much faster (less than 30 minutes)!

Anyway, there are still so many more kinds of "rubik's cubes", as you can see below.