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.

BBQ

Do you know that there's no such word as "barbeque"? I've checked the dictionary, "barbecue" is the correct spelling. Why am I talking about this? Let's take the time machine and go back 1 day ago.

It was only 2 o'clock in the afternoon and some of my older sister's friends had arrived. None of my friends were here yet. I received my first call at 3 o'clock. It was Jonas. He told me to meet him at the back gate. I rushed down to the front gate but saw nobody. 3.15pm, Jonas had not come. 3.25pm, still nobody. Impatient, I went up again. Just a minute later, or perhaps less than that, Jonas called and said he was already there waiting. I couldn't believe it! I went all the way down again and brought Jonas up. Luckily, he brought some drinks, or else I would be wasting my time :).

Later, a whole bunch of my friends came and the whole computer room was packed like sardines. The girls stayed in my parents' bedroom to watch DVD (Death Notes, I think). At about 6 pm, we went to the barbecue pit at the roof top of clubhouse to... barbecue. I thought that we booked the badminton court from 6-7, so I rushed down from the clubhouse and went up to the 8th floor of my block to get the badminton rackets. The door was locked as no one was at home! I went to the function room to look for my mother to get the keys. Since she was not there, I went up again to the BBQ pit to look for her. She said that she booked the badminton court from 7-8, not 6-7! So tiring ...

At 7 pm, we went to the badminton court to... You should know what. After a while, Haixiao just switched off the lights. I didn't know why, but we couldn't seem to switch it on again. So, we had to play in the dark, but at least we still could see a little.

After the badminton game, we went up to my house to play computer games again. All my friends left by 10 pm.

Cool Illusion!

This is definitely one of the coolest illusions I have ever seen.

Follow the instructions below:
1) Relax and concentrate on the 4 small dots in the middle of the picture for about 20 seconds
2) Then, take a look at a wall near you (any smooth, single-coloured surface wall)
3) You will see a circle of light developing
4) Blink your eyes a few times and you will see a figure appearing ...
5) What did you see? Who did you see?

Amazing Illusion!

Look at the above images from your seat in front of the computer. Mr. Angry is on the left, and Ms. Calm is on the right.

Now, get up from your seat, and move back 12 feet. Look at the image again. PRESTO!! They switch places!!

This shows that what we see sometimes may not be what's actually there. Seeing is not always believing, right?

It is said that the above illusion was created by Phillippe G.Schyns and Aude Oliva of the University of Glasgow.

Cute Comics

Just try...

Play The Impossible Quiz or the impossible quiz 2

Finally!

It seems like I have not blogged for an eternity, but now I can blog. I could not blog and it's all because of the PSLE. It's just studying and revising, cannot play or watch television, so stressful. Now, I can shake legs and play computer all day! Well, not all day, but at least I can play. Everyday from now onwards, I don't have to stay back for remedial or supplementary, yet we would be able to go to the computer lab to update my blog. I hope that we could play too.

Ok, now I'm bored. I will end my post here.

Alzheimers' Eye Test (incredible!)

Count every "F" in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE
SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI
FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

HOW MANY ? WRONG, THERE ARE [6] (highlight text box on the left to see the answer).
I am not joking!

The brain cannot process "OF".
Incredible? Go back and count again!!
Anyone who counts all 6 "F's" on the first go is a genius.
Three is normal, four is quite rare.

Beauty of Math!

Maths is amazing, see below:

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111= 12345678987654321

Brilliant, isn't it?

QPS Robotics Team emerged Champion!

- This article is contributed by Lim Min -

Yay! Our team clinched the championship award in the open category of Robotics Competition organised by the Singapore Science Centre on 8 Sep. My team consisted of Nicky, Jeremy (Clerence's brother), Jia He, Derek and me (Lim Min), all from QPS P6A'2006. Lim Jeck could not join us as he had to be at the SMO Prize Presentation on the day of the competition. The theme for this year is "Civil safety, security and emergency response". To prepare for this competition, all of us met at my house from Tuesday to Friday, 7.30pm to 11.30pm and on Saturday from 6.30am to 8am. We created a skit. It went like this: Jeremy would light a toilet-paper house on fire. I would operate the robot so that it would move towards the fire and squirt water onto the burning house and then go around it, cordoning off the area with a rope.

The whole experience was quite hilarious! Read on.

When we reached the science centre and realised that we were supposed to run the robot on the carpet instead of a smooth floor (oh no, our robot could not run properly on carpeted floor!), we quickly took our planks and 6 other teams' planks from their booths without them knowing as they were not there yet except for 1 JC Group. This group was kind enough to remove their belongings on the board at the top, to let us take the plank at the bottom. Weren't we resourceful! All of the judges did not notice that, or so we thought.

A group of judges came and noticed we were from different schools. They commented that it was the first time they had come across any team that comprised students from 4 different secondary schools (NUSH, RV, HCI, RGS). They were impressed, and kept complimenting that we were cohesive and close-knit even after leaving our primary school. They also asked if the robot used some sort of heat sensor to detect the fire. We replied "no". After the skit and the Q & A with the judges, we washed the plate of ashes and wiped the planks clean with a whole roll of toilet paper from the science centre girl's toilet. Aren't we resourceful again! Actually we tore out pieces of toilet paper to wipe the planks clean but then Nicky took the whole roll and rubbed it on the planks. We pulled out a chunk of toilet paper and wiped the planks, leaving the roll in a bad shape. We then returned one of the planks to the JC group. The JC group removed their things again so that we could put the plank back. Then Jeremy was playing with the matchsticks, enjoying the sight of it being burned away gradually. Then the bad news came. We had to present to another group of judges! There were actually two penal of judges! So we went to the JC group and took their plank again which meant they had to lift up their things agian. And there was only 1 matchstick left! We quickly set up everything again.

The second group of judges again asked if we used any heat sensor (maybe this was an important criteria). After they left, we took one of the planks and returned to the JC group again which meant they had to lift their things again (poor them!).

To be sure that we did not have to go through the same process again, we confirmed with the organiser that there would not be a third round of judges. Since the girl's toilet had no more toilet paper for us, the boys went to the boy's toilet to get some. I think they took all of the toilet papers too. We cleared up all the things (11am) and waited for the announcement scheduled for 3pm. I went for the sprint race at 2pm and met my team at McDonalds at about 3pm. I asked them for the result but they said we got 1st but not champion. I didn't understand what they meant and they said that was what my father said. I only realised what this meant later. My father asked for the result and the organiser said that we got 1st. Then Nicky, Jeremy, Jia He and Derek asked my father for the result and he said we got champion. Nicky asked if that was what the organiser said and my father replied, "No, they did not say we are champion, this is what I say. They only said we got 1st." (Get it?) This led to the confusion.

We did get 1st/Champion (same meaning) and won a trophy, 5 gold medals and 2 NXT Robotics Sets. We presented the trophy to QPS.

Update: Singapore Science Centre is sponsoring us (one coach + 3 members) to Taiwan-Taipei to take part in the Robotics Olympiad from 16 - 18 Nov. Wish us luck!!

《Tell Me Why》- A Children's tribute

A touching MTV ...



Lyrics:
In my dreams children sing
A song of love for every boy and girl
The sky is blue the fields are green
And laughter is the language of the world
Then I wake and all I see is a world full of people in need

Tell me why, does it have to be like this
Tell me why, is there something I have missed
Tell me why, I don't understand
When somebody needs somebody
We don't give a helping hand
Tell me why

Every day I ask myself what I have to do to be a man
Do I have to stand and fight
To prove to everybody who I am
Is that what my life is for
To waste in a world full of war

Tell me why, does it have to be like this
Tell me why, is there something I have missed
Tell me why, I don't understand
When somebody needs somebody
We don't give a helping hand

Tell me why
Tell me why
Tell me why
Just tell me why
Tell me why?
Just tell me why, why, why?

Tell me why (why,why,does the tiger run)
Tell me why(why why do we shoot the gun)
Tell me why (why,why do we never learn)
Can someone tell us why we let the forest burn?(why,why do we say we care)
Tell me why(why,why do we stand and stare)
Tell me why(why,why do the dolphins cry)
Can some one tell us why we let the ocean die?(why,why if we're all the same)
Tell me why(why,why do we pass the blame)
Tell me why (why,why does it never end)
Can some one tell us why we cannot just be friends?

Why Why.

Be generous when you give

Hope you enjoy!

DSA Confirmed Offers

It's over! It's finally over!

The oral is over! The worst thing in PSLE. I have been waiting for like... 12 years for this day to come! It seems that the whole PSLE is over. Oh man, it's still far from over. I have a feeling that once the worst fears are gone, all of it is gone. Anyway, there are still sec 1 to sec 4 oral exams. I wanted to rest after the oral but there are tonnes of homework, so heavy that it took me 24 hours to drag it from school to home. I'm just exaggerating.

I have listed all the exams according to their "scariness".
1. Chinese oral (over!)
2. English oral (over!)
3. Chinese compo
4. English compo
5. Chinese listening compre
6. English listening compre
7. Chinese paper 2
8. English paper 2
9. Science
10. Mathematics
Of course, the most fearful one is Chinese, followed by English then Science then Maths.

National Day Celebration at QPS

Click the pictures to have a better view.

Yesterday, we celebrated National Day at our school. The school hours were from 8 am to 10 am, and everyone had to wear red top white bottom, or white top red bottom (as red and white are the colours on our flag). We were advised to bring a face towel to wash our faces as we would be painting our faces. After the concert at about 10.10am, Maam told us that a teacher complained that one of us threw sponges and tissues out of the window. I was wondering if there was even any window in the hall. After a while, we were given two 'presents' - a souvenir (a 4-hands-thingy which was also a fridge magnet, and our homework! Oh man, everyone mumbled. It was like, we were the only class that received homework on that day.

Maam said that our class won the "National Day Fever" competition for primary 6. Yay!

My Movie

This movie is produced by Mrs Shahrin, our form teacher.

Back from Hong Kong Part 3

Day 4 was the most exciting and the "funnest" day in the whole trip. We went to Disneyland! Actually, I visited there once before, so I could recognise the place well and the weather was cold. But this time, the weather was scorching hot. First, we went to the Astro Blasters, which was a game where you had to shoot as many "Z" as possible to get as many points as possible. Although I played it the last time, I almost forgot what it was like. I managed to get 424,700 points. Next, we watched a 10-minute 4D movie. Since I watched it before during my first trip, I knew that something infront of my seat would spray the water or wind to create the 4D effect. I did not like the water, so I covered it with my hands before the show commenced. In the end, my hands became very wet. Later, we watched a skit which was slightly longer than the movie. It was not that nice actually. That was the end of our tour, and now we could go to any ride we fancied.

At about 3.30pm, the parade started. The people or "trucks" in the parade kept spraying water at us. It was due to the extremely hot and humid weather. I became soaked and drenched and my camera almost failed because of the water. After the parade, everyone, except me, went to the Space Mountain. It was a roller coaster ride in the dark. It was really fast that they had to take off their glasses, that's what they said. Of course, I was afraid to ride on roller coasters and I was the only one who did not ride on it. The other 3 friends played it 3 times, then we played the Astro Blasters again about 2 more times. My highest score was my first try. Late that day, we watched the fireworks. It was a picturisque view and was awesome. I really hoped to see it again, however it was actually polluting the air. Imagine what will happen when they display the fireworks everyday?

Day 5 was the return trip. We took a bus all the way to the airport. We were too early and waited for a while. When we boarded the aeroplane, the same thing almost happened like day 1 and the whole procedure repeated. When we reached Singapore at the arrival gate, I saw my mother, Lim Li and my grandmother. They were there to pick me up.

When I went to school the next morning, there was a welcome for me at the school gate. It was so heart-warming to see my principals, maam and my 6A friends welcoming and cheering for me.

Well, that's all. I had nothing else to type. You can view the photos below.