Creative with a Capital 'C'

The next best event to the approaching CJC carnival is the one week in school where we get to see how creative and innovative we all are, the hidden talents we all have, so as to put up a massive show & tell. And as Mr Johnny Lau, the guest of honour, so appropriately put into action, the event went down with a 'gong'.

But what were some of the projects we saw? We got to talk to several students to get the scoop on how and why they did their projects.

"We are connected to IJ in one way or another... after all, we are in a Catholic college." Ilona Loo (2A7) told me when I asked why her group wanted to do a detailed history of one of Singapore's oldest missionary schools, he Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus. "We took the pictures ourselves, but some are from archives", one of the group members beamed as he went through the different pages with scanned photographs of the schools. In fact, all the convents in the country, from St. Nicholas to CHIJ Toa Payoh and even their principals had a space in the project.

Ng Sze Kiat (2A3), a potential 'zookeeper' was constantly rubbing a spot on his finger. "I just got bitten twice today." he said, as he pointed at the small plastic container with a paradise tree snake. "They are mildly venomous, but their teeth are too small to penetrate the skin..." I had serious doubt about what he said but kept them to myself, as he continued to rub his finger, while I peered into the other containers with scorpions, a long-necked turtle from Australia, several rhino bettles without their 'horns' and three bright green treesnakes. There was even a cobra in a round basket on the floor, which he constantly opened up to show ethusiastic students circling the tables throughout the day. When I asked wha prompted him to initiate his project, he said in a serious tone:" (I) hope that everyone will feel what I feel for them - that they are actually harmless creatures that are so misunderstood... they deserve so much more credit than just simply termed as 'creepy crawlies'..."

Interesting fact 1: Although this project did not manage to get a prize in any of the 5 categorizes, it attracted the most attention and had the highest number of students at any one stall. Interesting fact 2: Sze Keat keeps a collection of exotic animals as pets at home, most of which he catches himself from location he apparently wants to keep as his own trade secret.

Lots of projects had activities for students to participate in, like cutve stitching. One could even keep the little piece of cardboard one made the stitches on. The Tangram (a game where several flat pieces of wood are put together to form a figure, like horse or sailboat) and Soma Cubes (a game where blocks are used to create structures, like a castle or a fort) project even offered prizes to whoever could complete each indicated diagram to the next level. The ultimate prize was a teddy bear (a purple Carebear from yesteryear) which was to go to the person who managed to compete the entire game.

For the aspiring Zoe Tays and those concerned with how the harsh environment is treating your skin, there was even a project for you to determine your skin type and what sort of facial treatment one should go for, with a few recommendations for which products to try. "I actually got this chart from a magazine." the girl said with a bit of a nervous laugh from behind the chart, which reminded me of a Clinique counter in a departmental store.

But it wasn't all jus about fun and games. Some projects needed some real head cracking. "This program calculates the probability of what something is." If this sentence is too vague for you to understand, then read on. I was bombarded with sheet upon sheet of handwritten numbers and although the project leader tried to explain to me the mechanism of how the program worked to identify handwriting) a computer program handed down to her by her mentor), I could only nod my head in appreciation of the complexities involved in the project. This project won a place among the 8 available in the Mathematics and IT category.

Or perhaps if you're the adventurous sort and into fantasy, you should log onto one of the available websites of some of the projects. "This is a role-playing game we set up online," one male student said as he gestured to an empty seat for me to view the 'Haunted Camelot', "Altogether, with the picture files, it takes up about 2 megabytes... with about 200 files and 50 pages.. and we're still going to expand the story." I marvelled at the complexity of the story, and the impressive teamwork shown.

Of course, there was a large variety of advertising project i this 'market' and they ranged from watches to perfumes to stamps to music. And each had chosen their own form of media. Prashan s/o Ramchanoran (2C11) laughed as he explained why his team's project (on a watch advertisement) only had a storyboard of what they wanted to do on film. "We brought 2 batteries for the V-cam, but we still ran out of battery." A pity acutally... the prhotographs of the storyboard, as well as the "models" looked very professional; there was also a photograph for a poster.

Ms Ban Pei Ling: "I think that student (Sze Kiat) is so cool! I asked him whether his parents mind (his keeping of exotic animals) and h said they are used to it!..."

Mrs Jasmine Tan: I thought the cafe idea was really eat... from the oh-so-polite witers to the real coffee and cake being served, to the drama being played out in the next table to menu-cum-script... however, I wasn't much in the mood for food, having jus seen the frong embalming video..."

Ms Pauline Chua: "I was impressed by the computer projects which were creative and showed a high level of technical skill. I thought "Camelot" was very entertaining, informative but put game format... very clever!"

* Special note:
TCS came during the week to film the winners of the 5 catergories: Trade & Marketing, Maths & IT, Humanities & General Paper, Science, and Culture & Language.

The 'Haunted Camelot' is actually a website featuring information on supernatural topics. However, there is a plot behind the whole site. Under the full moon, the 'Haunted Castle of Camelot' rose from nowhere. Inside, filled with demons and evil spirts. Users navigate around the castle with the help of the map. Each room features one particular topic, for example 'Vampires' or 'Doomsday Cults'. Users actually play a role of finding the gems spreaded throughout the site, which they'll find upon reading an article. Eventually, when the users went through all the rooms, collected all the gems and exit the castle, they'll get complete the game - drive away the evil and get the priceless treasure!

I come out with the concept together with my buddy, Chris Lim. What the writer failed to mention was we came out top in the Mathematics and IT catergory to win the gold medal. Here is a silly picture of us savouring our glory in front of the neoprint machine! And of cos, we were contented with that and never really expanded the site anymore. hahs. But there are certainly changes going out although we din do anything. Unfortunately, all entries of our guestbook are gone, due to some screwups with their servers. Of cos, Fortunecity has also added these stupid banners on top of every page without informing us. it spoilt the whole feeling we tried to create. Lastly the counters' down! Now I don't know how many people been there. Bummers!