My team participated in the Science / Mathematics category with our product: Guava derived anti-allergen.
And now, a day-by-day account of the 4-day event.
Day 1
So here I am, at my first science fair, as a participant.
Okay, it's a lie. If you read the Medicinal Plants Discovery Award (MPDA) entry, you can safely presume this to be my second science fair as a participant. The difference this time? There are more competitors from almost every renowned and wannabe-renown school in Penang.
Unlike the closed door MPDA competition, the JPN Science Fair was conducted in a large hall packed full of the participating schools, their products, and scientific stuff from Petroscience (ergo, brain teasers and other cool stuff. The most impressive being the gigantic gyroscope for a human victim).
Unlike the almost American Idol-like presentation for the MPDA, we were allowed to do our presentations in our native habitat, informally and in English. The judges would skulk from one stall to another, patiently hearing the participants out before skewing them with sharpened spears of interrogative questioning, aiming their violent weapons at the weakest link of the armour.
Thankfully, I thrive under pressure. Nothing gets my blood pumping, my heart racing, and my brain juices boiling, bubbling, and bursting like a group of adults with hard-hitting questions. Yes, all those episodes of House, Xplay, and Anthony Bourdain were finally paying off.
The day started off with us packing all our lab equipment into a school bus. There were only 10 of us and they booked a school bus. Not since the last few days before the SPM have I had so much leg-room to share with my fellow students.
That's the only prominent part of the trip so to spare you the burden of reading my descriptions of the hazy oceans, I will dive into the science fair itself.
There wasn't really much good I can say about our fellow competitors, then again, there is not much good I can say about our product either. But boiling used cooking oil until it becomes sap? (Are you serious?) Statistical data on the SPM results for Mathematics? (My brain just dissolved from incredulity)
There were a few exceptions. But the only one I can truly say was impressive enough to warrant an award was the team from Penang Free School that made paint (as in Nippon, ICI kind of paint) from milk.
Anyway, the judges swung by sometime close to 1200hrs and we proceeded to give a five minute dissertation on why we should win first prize. The judges then challenged our application with questions about the accuracy of our data, the active compounds within our product, and a dozen other questions which were as easily shot down as giant alien mosquitoes with machine guns.
After that ordeal, we did nothing more but await the thronging visitors who would occasionally chance upon our booth. Then, we took turns explaining how our product was created, its reason of existence, and why it will not attain enlightenment.
Just before leaving, some people holding a certain cultured-milk-drink laminated logo swung by our stall to hear us out, while placing the said laminated paper right smack in the middle of our stall. Blatant advertisement aside, I expect to see some form of royalty if they decide to use the picture for promotional purposes.
The final denouement. The chief judge came by our stall and asked us to give our product's presentation once more. Except, it had to be done by one person within three minutes, using a voice recorder. Whether or not it was within three minutes I will never know, but this anomaly in human behaviour means only one thing...
We may be competing for the top prize!
Day 2
The day began differently. Instead of heading to school, I travelled over to my teacher's apartment block. I met up with two of my juniors who were also participating in the science fair in the engineering category.
The teacher swung by in her multi-purpose-vehicle and off we went to Institut Latihan Perindustrian Kepala Batas.
Wait, have we forgotten something? Damn! My two lab partners!
No, we aren't that forgetful. They had to sit for a paid-for mathematics assessment test. So off I went alone across the haze strewn landscape, where the sky and the sea merged into a single amorphous cloud of indistinguishable white.
Fickleness in choosing our parking gave us a few laughs as we passed the scouts who were out under the cloudy sun directing traffic.
Stepping into the hall, I quickly went about the task of re-establishing our base. Construction of the filtration and distillation apparatus was completed in a heartbeat, and before I could even set my roots into a quiet spot to browse through the latest issue of Nipponia, two middle-aged ladies came by and made inquiries.
Not soon after I have attended to them, explaining the various processes and uses involved in our experiments, more people shuffled by to listen. Very soon, I found myself in an unrelenting marathon session of talks about antihistamine and steam distillation, guava and quercetin, and anything else that was relevant to the project.
It was hot, humid, and cramped. I was soon soaked all over until two Malay ladies who had come by to ask about our product flapped their booklets at me in a futile attempt to decrease my core body temperature. I was sweating so profusely, a primary school student said I was melting to a friend. Believe me, this could have been the funniest thing to happen all morning.
Somewhere in between, a Malay lady strode towards me and asked for my teacher and lab partners. While I would have sincerely wished to say my lab partners had lost their way and were now in Kuala Lumpur, I forgot the Malay words for some reason and therefore told the truth; they were going to be late but were on the way.
Anyway, the lady wanted me to pass on a message to my teacher advisor, which I did through my pet pigeon, Nokia 1100. She couldn't hear me over the loud noise blaring over the speakers, and strained her poor bleeding legs back to our stall. I passed the message and she asked whether the lady had talked to the other school teachers. I replied in the negative.
Conclusion 1: We were going to receive at least, a consolation prize.
Some time later, she came back, and broke the news. Against all the odds of racism and favouritism, we won... First Place. Well, first in our category anyway.
My initial response, continue my presentation to a bunch of primary school kids on our project. In fact, the steady amount of visitors to our stall prevented me from relaying the message of our victory to my partners who were rushing over from the island.
Not long after my partners turned up, the judges came by and gave us possibly the most beautifully ugly laminated pink paper with the number “1” printed in bold. This we proudly stuck onto the retort stand holding a filter funnel.
Somewhere in between the excitement, I decided to pay an impromptu visit to Chung Ling High School Butterworth. They had fashioned a rubbish bin that used a light sensor to control a sliding lid. Sound familiar? Well, rubbish bins that automatically open their maws to swallow our gunk have been making their sinister appearance on silver screens worldwide since the advent of sci-fi films.
Not that I am demeaning them. The design was quite ingenious. The concept simple. Like an iPod Shuffle with only the “Play” button attached. And the circuitry combining a permanent magnet with a electromagnet to control the sliding lid was inspired. They thoroughly deserved their category's first place.
That is, if you actually took the time to look at what the other "engineers" came up with. A cylinder that digs holes? Haven't they been to a golf course, or at least watch one being built on tv?
Since the Butterworth boys gave us the tour of their project, it was only natural for us to invite them over to view our project. Just as I was getting into my stride explaining the uses of our product, our teacher advisor literally dragged me and another member of my team far, far away from our booth – leaving our team leader to continue the explanation.
She then proceeded to give me an LSD (Little Stupid Dream) induced berating about my apparent attempts to sabotage our chances of winning the overall prize. When I tried to explain the importance of treating your competitors as friends, she got into her 100-tonne truck of stubborn resolve and drowned me out by accusations of “not enjoying the pleasures of life” and threats upon my person if I somehow screw her chances of ever leading an overall champion winning team, by inviting our fellow finalists to view our product.
The rather painful tugging on my sleeves by the sudden vice-like grip of my teacher advisor only made the situation more hilarious than dangerous.
I admit, it would be nice to win. But seeing as I have lost countless times in countless competitions, I tend to treat victory exactly like defeat. With the lingering fact of legal racism practised in this country, I would rather eat my own vomit than thank the event organisers sincerely from the bottom of my heart for winning something.
So what does that leave me with? New friends and new lessons.
And although I was stuck in the same car, I got my chance to have a good laugh at my teacher advisor when she took a wrong turn on the highway home – heading to Kuala Lumpur instead of Penang.
Day 3
To school first. We have a presentation to perform.
Then, by car to the fair.
Haze, still there.
At the fair , we talked and talked,
Until my voice grated like chalk.
The end.
Day 4
Finally, it will be finished, over, and done with.
We arrived early for a change, and by bus too. It was the day one of us would receive a championship shield, and we wouldn't want to offend the organisers with our tardiness.
A few schools still sent teams to the fair, although most of the stalls were no longer manned, as it was the last day of the event. Even though we didn't need to, I gave talks on the scientific aspects of our product to students who swung by our stall.
They came all the way from somewhere far, far away. It would be a pity if they left with nothing.
About half-an-hour after we arrived at the hall, I was ushered away from our stall into the auditorium located a hundred metres away. There, we witnessed and experience first-hand the extreme efficiency of the event organisers in carrying out their duties.
We were first seated to the side. Then asked to vacate our seats. After we were placed at another row of seats to the middle-front, we were once more chased away by the man armed with poor-planning to another row somewhere to the side.
I would love to continue the story here, but we were asked once more to vacate our seats.
Then, once all the schools were gathered into the auditorium, we were given the honour of kick-starting the final round of presentations. Boy, it sure feels good to finally do a live presentation in English!
A round of applause later, and we were back in our seats, taking pot-shots at the other teams presenting their products. Among them, an apparent “Geneva competitor” with their innovative Nobel-prize winning product, the “Integrated Recycling Rubbish Bin”, which was nothing more than six multi-coloured hexagonal wooded bins nailed together.
Remember that article in The Star a few months ago that reported on the wasteful spending by certain universities? Those geniuses who send send their Nobel-prize hopefuls to scientific competitions in Geneva? Where the number of Malaysian participants make up the largest single group of entries from one nation?
Anyway, the apparent “innovators” came on stage to show us all pictures of them making the coffins... sorry, I mean Integrated Recycling Rubbish Bin, in the school workshop. The two boys, who barely exceeded the height of the chair they sat upon before being summoned on stage had participated in the fair by showing everyone the glorious letters of approval they had received from various Malaysian institutions of higher learning.
Let's see. If two boys small enough to play Hobbit #25 & Hobbit #26 can win approvals from their peers for creating a more inefficient waste collection system, and given first prize at some Malaysian inventions competition in Kuala Lumpur, I really don't want to know what their fellow competitors did to lose.
So, after the two boys finished their unnecessarily long presentation, they began showing us the glorious pieces of paper awarded to them for their “innovation”.
Funnily enough, it didn't end right there. The chief judge of the science fair, Dr Fong came onto stage after them to heap what seemed like high praise on the two Geneva bound boys. However, if one read between the odd pauses between the praises, one could almost hear the poisonous sarcasm leaking from the fine suit of professionalism that held Dr Fong back. He went on to ask all participants to emulate the two boys in commercialising their product, and then went on and on about how godlike the two were.
More speeches and a toilet run later, the painful “cenderahati istimewa” process began. Try as I may, I can't imagine M.I.T. giving prises to competition organisers, judges, and sponsors for doing their job.
After what seemed like an eternity of self praise, the actual prize giving ceremony was carried out in due fashion. But alas! Another flaw.
I am all for encouraging our children to go forth and (add suitable action here). However, to award prizes for coming in at 7th place?
This was after all, a multi-category science fair, and it was the last day. One would expect the prize giving ceremony to be a quick, dignified affair. Not an example of the Malaysian mentality – the tendency to award mediocrity.
Long story short, we lost the overall prize shoot-out. Chung Ling Butterworth trumped us with a dustbin that has the magical ability to open its lid automatically when it senses changes in light intensity.
Meaning?
A product which applies the basic principles of an airport glass door defeated an alternative source of anti-allergen.
What can I say?
On CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Gil Grissom once said to a bemused Catherine Willows: “Bugs always win.” In science fairs, Grissom would be the bespectacled kid among ant farms; while Willows would be the kid with the volcano.
Oh well... Here in Malaysia, “Stuff that makes us lazier win.”
1 comment:
You still won more than me, and better yet, you made some serious dinero from them. Lucky bugger.
Post a Comment