A Busy Year for 2011 ...

This is posted by LJ's mum.

2011 is going to be a very busy year for the kids.

For Lim Min, she is going to RI. While she takes about 20 mins to travel by MRT & bus to RGS, she will now need to spend about 40 mins to travel to RI (Queenstown MRT to Marymount MRT). I heard from ex-RGS now-RI parents that students are much busier in RI and they have to take 2 CCAs, which means they work harder and play harder as compared to when they are in secondary school! Lim Min will be taking GP and 4 H2s - Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. She has done very well for her Maths (scoring 98 & 100 for the Maths 1 & Maths 2) and 3 Sciences (scoring 90 or close) while in RGS so it's a pity that she has to drop Biology to take the contrasting subject, Economics. But I heard Economics is an interesting subject so I guess, you lose some and you gain some.

For Lim Jeck, he is going to have an incredibly busy schedule! He is taking two NUS modules - Linear Algebra from NUS Faculty of Science and Competitive Programming (this module is free and ungraded) from the School of Computing. On top of that, he has the usual National Team Training at NUS Math Dept on Saturday mornings. Including the NUS modules, I think his timetable will have 2 days that end at 6 pm, 2 days end at 7 pm (Linear Algebra, 4-7 pm) and 1 day ends at 9 pm (Competitive Programming, 6-9 pm). He did well for his previous NUS module - Calculus and got an A+, which means he is able to claim the bulk of the course fee from NUS High. I think NUS High really suits him to a T, as he can enjoy working on his passion while maximising his potential in his strong areas - maths, physics, chemistry and programming.

For Lim Li, next year is PSLE year. Needless to say, she will have to stay back in school most of the days and her school teachers are going to give her tonnes of homework in preparation for the PSLE. She should have no problem doing well for Maths and Science, but I think she has to put in more effort for English and Chinese, her weaker subjects. I am sure her Chinese teacher, Ms Chai, will do the necessary to prepare the class well, so Lim Li should do all right (hopefully, get a high A) as long as she does all the work assigned by Ms Chai, diligently. I am more worried for her English. Maybe I would work out a schedule to revise English with her.

Hope everyone can have a fruitful year ahead!

Hikaru No Go

"Hikaru No Go" is a Japanese comic manga series as well as anime. It is our family favourite, as even my parents also read the comic books and watched the DVDs which we borrowed from the libraries. It also piques our interest in the Go game, which we are playing now :)

Hikaru No Go is the story of a 6-grader, Shindo Hikaru (left on above picture: boy with yellow hair), who by chance meets a 1000-year old ghost, Fujiwarano Sai (right on above picture: man with almost lady-like features) , who was trapped in a Go Board before his release. Together, Hikaru Shindo and Sai make a great go-playing team and they follow the path that leads them to the divine move or "Hand of God"; along the way they meet many memorable characters, such as Waya, Isumi, Ochi and Hikaru's and Sai's respective destined rivals, Touya Akira and Touya Kouyo.

There are many touching scenes such as those depicting the close friendship ties fostered between Hikaru and Sai, as well as among the the group of friends as they graduate from Insei to become Pro, or professional Go players, the integrity conflict and how a depressed Hikaru goes searching for Sai when he leaves suddenly. This is definitely a manga which I would recommend to anyone, even if you don't play Go.

3N Royal Caribbean Cruise

My family went for a 4 Days 3 Nights Best of Malaysia on Royal Caribbean Cruise (Legend of The Seas) from 20 Dec to 23 Dec. We stayed in 2 rooms, Oceanview stateroom, Deck 2. It was a relaxing and enjoyable trip, with lots of fun games, rock climbing and delectable food. We also joined the shore excursion to Penang - visit to butterfly farm, SEA's longest bridge, kampongs.

Playing table soccer.

Playing wii.

Endless supply of twist ice cream.

Lobster and elephant made by our stateroom attendant.

Towel folding class where we learnt how to fold tortoise, dog, elephant and monkey.

We enjoyed rock climbing.

Fine Dining at Romeo and Juliet restaurant, with starter, main course and desserts (which we shared).

Our favourite hang-out place - the Optix (Deck 10), where we played table soccer, wii and card games.

My Cousin's Wedding

Extended family group photo taken after my cousin (Han Kee)'s wedding banquet at Ritz-Calton, on 12 Dec 2010.

Top in Singapore for Froggy Jump

Lim Li is now officially the top scorer in Singapore for Froggy Jump, with a score of 2,071,984. The 2nd highest score in Singapore is 1,152,708. The world's highest score is 67,116,504 (by someone in USA), and Lim Li is ranked 223rd in the world.

The above shows the locations of the top 6 scorers in Singapore.

And of course, the top scorer lives in Queens!

Comic Books

Comic books which we devour during the school holidays. Every week, we read 20-30 books. All were borrowed from the Central Public Library and Jurong Regional Library.

My Favourite Comic Books

This is posted by LL ☺☻ 1st - Case Closed

2nd - Fullmetal Alchemist

3rd - Skip Beat

4th - Shaman King

5th - Hunter x Hunter

QPS 6A'06 Gathering on 29 Nov

Gathering for Lim Min's primary school classmates, at Queens function room.

No one is supposed to know how this game is played.

With Mr Tan looking on. Both Mr Ng and Ms Chai could not make it for the gathering :(

Playing card game with twisties as bets?

Lim Li joining the current Sec 4s for a card game.

NUS High 1-Day Math Camp

This is posted by LL ☺ ☻

Yesterday I attended a Logic and Games Math camp at NUS High. At the camp, there were only 3 girls out of 18 students, so sad.

We played the frog puzzle, the one where the frog can only walk 1 step or jump over another frog. We must find the formula for the number of moves depending on n number of frogs, which is n^2+2n. Other games we played include: Nim, Cross the River, Quadrant tic-tac-toe, etc. The student helper Ananya Kumar said that Lim Jeck had been blabbering about minecraft for the past 3 days and Lim Jeck said that the graphics was great (the sun, moon, stars, clouds and hands are squares and everything is pixelated ☺).

At lunch, the food was not buffet kind, but a packet of bee hoon with egg, fish, otah, fish cake and ikan billis (see picture). For tea breaks, we had packets and biscuits. So pathetic right ... actually, not so bad, I am just exaggerating and I brought home 4 packets of drink and a lot of biscuits until my bag was so full that I could not put my pencil case inside and I had to put it in my pocket.

I think the camp is quite fun.

QtPS Year End Prize Giving Ceremony

This is posted by LL's mum.
This year the EOY Prize Giving Ceremony is held at night (7.30 pm) instead of in the morning (as in previous years). There is also a cultural night performance after the prize giving ceremony. Lim Li gets two awards - Top in Maths and Top in Science. She wants to apply to only NUS High for DSA next year, and has no intention to try other schools like RGS and NJC. I think NUS High is probably suitable for her :). Like her two older siblings, she is stronger in Maths and Science and weaker in the languages.

Froggy Jump - ranked 3rd in Singapore

This is posted by LL.
My score for Froggy Jump is 1,070,532. I am ranked 3rd in Singapore and 592th in the world. Aren't I pro? The current highest score in the world is 67,116,504.

The top score in Singapore is 1,152,708. I think I could have easily beaten this record if I had not given up after playing for more than 1 hr and getting very "xian". I thought the top score is 500k+, otherwise I would have perservere to earn the top spot. So wasted!!!! My feeling now is opposite of this ☺

Bakegyamon

This is posted by LL.

School holidays are around the corner, it means we can read comic books to our hearts' content. Recently, we borrowed this Bakegyamon book from the Jurong Libary. There is only 1 of this English comic title in the Jurong and Central Libary and it is only until volume 3. However the Chinese version has all 5 volumes.

The story is about Sanshiro (the red-cap boy), whose father is an adventurer and he wants to follow his father's footsteps. So a guy called Fue (beside Sanshiro in the picture) brought him to play Bakegyamon, a game that comes every 44 years for thousands of children to play and the winner will get 1 wish granted. Demons are turned into cards (Sanshiro is holding it in the picture) for the players to use to fight. Many players think that the demons are items but they are not. Being a kind and considerate boy, Sanshiro decides that his wish is to free the demons, if he wins the game.

Exams .. not over yet!

Today I have taken the make-up paper for English.

The last exam paper is on 22 Nov - Calculus.

Spinning Table

CWMO Photos

Wayne, Wei Liang, Zhan Xiong, Mr Teo, me, Ding Yue, Ryan Kor, Joseph Kuan

Two burly "bodyguards" protecting Ryan and me.

Yema Rallygraf watch (branded??) for Gold medalists. Why didn't they give computer notebooks, like what Kazahstan did in this year's IMO, for the Gold medalists?

Remember Lim Min's CGMO photos? Déjà vu

Singapore won 2 Gold medals and 6 Silver medals, same as last year.

We were compensated S$100 each :) for the 6 hours' delay in the flight from Singapore to Shanghai

Off to Shanxi, China

This is posted by LJ's mum.

Part of the team from the Singapore delegation to the China Western Mathematical Olympiad (CWMO) left this morning in the wee hours for Shanghai Pudong airport. Mr Thomas Teo accompanied the 7 students - Wei Liang, Wayne Lin, Zhan Xiong, Ding Yue, Ryan Kor, Joseph Kuan and Lim Jeck. Everyone gathered at about 11 pm. However, the flight information display system showed that there would be a 3-hr delay to the China Eastern Airlines flight, which was originally scheduled for 12.55 am. Later, there was another delay and eventually the group left at about 6.25 am. The picture is taken from Mr Teo's Facebook, and it shows the students catching 40 winks while waiting for their flight.

From Shanghai Pudong airport, they will be taking a coach to Shanghai Hongqiao airport to catch a flight to Taiyuan, where the CWMO competition is held.

Another teacher, Mr Derrick Wong, will accompany the 8th student, Zhang Aidi, and they are taking tomorrow morning's flight.

The Programme for the CWMO is as follows:
26 Oct (Tue) - Arrival
27 Oct (Wed) - Opening Ceremony
28 Oct (Thu) - Day 1 of Competition
29 Oct (Fri) - Day 2 of Competition
30 Oct (Sat) - Excusion
31 Oct (Sun) - Closing Ceremony & Departure
1 Nov (Mon) - Reach Changi Airport at 5 am.

On the day of his return, Lim Jeck will be taking his Chemistry exam at 2 pm. The next day, he has Physics in the morning. Both are "non-study" subjects so he should not have problem handling them without doing any revision during the trip. It is fortunate that he has been exempted from the Chinese & Biology papers on 29 Oct, and there is no need for any make-up (otherwise he may have to bring his Biology notes for the trip). There will be a make-up (date not known yet) for the English paper that he will miss.

This trip does not have much impact on Lim Jeck's schedule at NUS High - he will only miss 2 days of revision and 2 reading days since it is exam period. I think he will miss 2 lectures and 1 tutorial at NUS, where he is taking the Calculus module. I was more worried for him when he participated in the last two IMOs as there was a long stretch of absence (3-4 weeks) from school. Next year, the IMO will be held in the later part of July, which means that if Lim Jeck is selected for IMO again, he would probably miss more than 5 weeks of lessons. The intensive daily training (except Sunday) usually starts before the June holidays and ends on the day before the competition (about 2 months). I wish that the trainers would allow the students to attend class and only train them during weekends, so that there is less catch-up on lessons missed and tonnes of tutorials/assignments/projects not done, after the IMO competition. I think I am probably more stressed than Lim Jeck, whenever he has missed a long period of lessons. He, on the other hand, is quite cool and unperturbed by such things.

Math Question on ABCDEF

Someone posted the following question on the cbox:

Find the 6-digit number ABCDEF such that 7 x ABCDEF = 6 x DEFABC where DEFABC is another 6-digit number. Different letters stand for different single-digit whole numbers.

Solution:
Let
___
ABC = x
___
DEF = y

7 * (1000x + y) = 6 * (1000y + x)
6994x = 5993y
538x = 461y
Clearly, x = 461 and y = 538
Hence the 6-digit number is 461538.

Trophies and Medals

Posted by Lim Li.
Someone asked if I kept my medals in an album. No, the medals were dumped somewhere in the display cabinet below. My NMOS medal is in the second picture below, centre row, with the bright red ribbon.

3rd Annual Mathlympics

This is posted by Lim Li

Hello, this morning I went to ACS(I) for the 3rd Annual Mathlympics prize presentation. We won 4 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze, as well as the 3rd runner-up team award.


From the picture, (left to right, top to bottom):
Wei Jue (gold), Tarun (bronze), Zheng Han (silver), Stephen aka Step (gold), me (gold) and Jarod (gold).

After that, we proceeded to Tiong Bahru Plaza's McDonalds. Mr Ng gave us a treat. He is very very super super rich and generous. Then, we saw his mother pass by. He said that his mother exercised everyday and looked very youthful though she is 60+.

Inside the MRT carriage on the way home , Step sat on the reserve seat and Mr Ng remarked "Are you pregnant?" Then, someone (cannot remember who) said that Step could sit on Mr Ng's lap.

CWMO 2010

I will be going to China for the China Western Math Olympiad (CWMO) 2010, from 26 to 1 November. There are 2 teams, total 8 of us from the National Team. The CWMO 2010 will be held in Taiyuan, Shanxi of China.

As my year end exams are from 29 Oct to 2 Nov, I will not be able to take 3 papers - Chinese, Biology (29 Nov) and English (1 Nov morning). Not sure of the make-up for the missed papers ...

Math Qn on Red and Blue Marbles

This is posted by LL ☺
Someone posted the following question on the cbox:

Container A contains 250 red marbles and 200 blue marbles. Container B contains 600 red marbles and 150 blue marbles.How many red and blue marbles must be moved from Container A to Container B such that 25% of the marbles in Container A are red and 75% of the marbles in Container B are red?

LL's solution:

before............after
A red 250.........1 unit(u)
..blue 200........3 units(u)

B red 600.........3 parts(p)
..blue 150........1 part(p)

4u+4p=1200 (total of red and blue marbles in containers A and B)
->1u+1p=300
3p+u=850 (total red marbles)
(3p+u)-(1u+1p)=850-300
2p=550, p=275
At first, container B has 150 blue balls.
Now, container B has 1 part=275 which is increased by 275-150=125 blue marbles
At first, container B has 600 red balls.
Now, container B has 3 parts=275x3=825 which is increased by 825-600=225 red marbles

Therefore, 225 red and 125 blue marbles must be moved from Container A to Container B.

Random Math Question

Find the shaded area.
Let the midpoint of line AD be E. (Centre of semi-circle). Let the arc of AC and AD cut at point F.
AE = EF = 3.5 (radius of circle)
BA = BF = 7 (radius of circle)
EB is common. Then,
Triangle ABE is congruent to Triangle FBE. Hence,
angle ABE = angle FBE = tan-1(AE/AB) = tan-1(1/2) (Note: tan-1 means tangent inverse)
angle ABF = angle ABE + angle FBE = 2 tan-1(1/2) (get this angle in degree)
Area of sector ABF = (2 tan-1 (1/2))/360 x 7 x 7 x pi = (49 pi tan-1(1/2))/180

angle AEB = angle FEB = tan-1(AB/AE) = tan-1(2)
angle AEF = angle AEB + angle FEB = 2 tan-1(2) (get this angle in degree too)
Area of sector AEF = (2 tan-1(2))/360 x 3.5 x 3.5 x pi = (49 pi tan-1(2))/720

Area of quadrilateral ABFE = 3.5x7 = 24.5

Area of shaded region = Area of sector ABF + Area of sector AEF - Area of quadrilateral ABFE
= (49 pi tan-1(1/2))/180 + (49 pi tan-1(2))/720 - 24.5
= 11.8cm2 (round off to 1 decimal point)
(exact pi is used, not 22/7)

Games on iPad

This is posted by Lim Li.
In Angry Birds, you are supposed to kill the green thingy by shooting the birds using a catapult. I do not play it often as I am stuck on level 3-12.

In Plants VS Zombies, you are supposed to kill the zombies by planting plants to attack the zombies and to prevent them from eating your brains. Sometimes, I play this game with my cousin, Liu Qin, who just completed the game like me and my sister and brother (we completed the game long ago).

My mother keeps saying that this is our favourite game because she always sees us playing it. However, we play it everyday because we need to get the gems (one gem can be obtained per day from the word game) to buy stuff which help you play the game better. My high score is 278686, but the highest in the world is 30 something millions!

In Farm Story, we are given a plot of land to plant and harvest crops to earn money. If we don't harvest the plants, they will die. This game is rather repetitive and boring, but we play it every day. We are now at level 42.

A Great Educational Toy

This is posted by LJ's mum.
My kids practically grow up with Tomy Megasketcher, a magnetic drawing board. It is their favourite toy. It has a unique screen that allows one to draw clear and crisp pictures, unlike the rough pictures drawn on honeycomb type magnetic board made by Fisher. I bought the first one when Lim Min was 4 or 5 years old and to-date I must have bought over 10 of them (about 1 every year) as the impression left on the drawing surface become quite faint after some months of heavy usage.

When my kids were young (before schooling age), they loved to to draw random pictures and complicated mazes (Lim Jeck's favourite), and now they use it to practise spelling/ tingxie, solve maths problems or just doodle and scribble.

It is a great learning companion for them all these years!

Lim Jeck solving a question that someone posted on Mathlinks.

Lim Li creating different ways of writing the word 'BAD'.

Math Qn

Someone posted the following question on the cbox:
Let AG be x cm.
Then GB = 12-x
Triangle AGF is similar to Triangle ABC, hence AG = GF = x
Tiangle BGF is similar to Triangle BAE, hence
BG/GF = BA/AE
=> (12-x)/x = 12/6 (since AB = 12, AE = 6)
=> 12-x = 2x
=> x=4
Area of Triangle DEF = 1/2 x ED x AG = 1/2 x 6 x 4 = 12
Area of Triangle DFC = 1/2 x DC x (BC - GF) = 1/2 x 12 x (12-4) = 48
Hence, Area of shaded region = 12 + 48 = 60 cm2.

911

SMO (Senior) - Individual 8th 120
SMO (Senior) - Team 3rd 88 (I think, 350/4)
SMO (Open) - Individual 8th 120
SMO (Open) - Team 4th 83 (250/3)
IMO Silver - 500
Total - 911 :)

Yay!

I went for the Hwa Chong Math Quest 2010 yesterday. We (my mother, Lim Li and I) took 3 buses (186, 153, 174) from my house and alighted at HCI's 1st bus stop (there are 3 bus stops that lead to 3 different HCI entrance gates). There was some construction going on and the first gate was closed. So we walked to the 2nd bus stop. Still no open gate in sight. We then took a bus (luckily it's distance-based fare now, so it was free or cost only a few cents) to the 3rd bus stop, and entered HCI through the 3rd gate. The whole HCI was like a ghost town (it's Saturday at 8 am) and there was not a single soul to guide us - no signs on the Math Quest and no Hwa Chong students around to provide direction. It took us quite long to find LT3 (competition venue at 2nd level) as the direction signs to the LTs are not very clear. Fortunately I was not late. My mother and Lim Li then left for the RGS Speech Day and Prize Presentation Ceremony, as Lim Min has won an award.

Yay, NUS High has won the Individual 1st and Team 1st in the Hwa Chong Math Quest. I got a ridiculously huge trophy, a TI Graphic Calculator (my 3rd one, I had 2 from the NJC Math Challenge 2010), a 2 GB TI Thumb Drive and $50 Popular Book Vouchers.