Koh JinWei

Day 0. [Arrival at Melbourne]

Itinerary:
Arrived in Melbourne at 0813 hours, met up with the other delegates and our buddy and registered for our single rooms.

Went to ChadStone shopping mall, and had lunch at  the foodtrucks (really something different)

Afterwards, we had some fun and games with the other delegates and our buddies to know one another more.

Then, there was dinner and bed time.


Major Learning points :
Australians are really more friendly and that is a certain lax vibe about Melbourne, compared to Singapore's busy and rushed city.

Their land is huge, Melbourne city itself is around the size of S'pore, thus everything is spread out and bigger, like the mall was 3x of S'pore malls.

Pictures:

Day 1 Reflections
Itinerary:
Science Communication Challenge at JMSS
Frontier materials around Monash: Synchrotron, 3D metal manufacturing and nano fabrication.
Science Communication Challenge Finals


Major Learning points -

Learned more about Australia through the group mates in the challenge, apparently most either live in farms, bush land and some near towns.

And their high and middle schools are apparently way smaller than that of Singapore Secondary and JCs.

John Monash Science School has a very open concept, whereby there wasn't much classrooms but mostly open spaces with chairs and smart boards to conduct lessons.

Day 2 Reflections
Itinerary :
City challenge in the morning, which we basically went around Melbourne City do complete various task and explore more of the city too. It was fantastic, with the modern and old building mash-up and the different streets dedicated to something. E.g there was a street which was just filled with law firms and courts and the like.

Poster Presentations were pretty standard, except that we had more proofs compared to previously thus making our engineering more complete with the research. Saw a few nice projects too.

Lastly, the beach. Mordialloc Beach was a very nice stretch of beach, the weather was freezing at first though. Had many fun games: Tug of War, Frisbee (which was just a ring without the middle) and there was also something like a projectile which makes a noise if you throw it fast enough. Got hit in the eye though. Oh, yeah. Saw some surfing also, but it wasn't those like supper high waves, just paddling out and lie flat on the board as it pushes u back.

Major Learning points -

Learned more about Melbourne City and the background of some places.

Some pics'

Day 3 Reflections
Itinerary :
Got up really early and headed out of Melbourne City to Bellarat for Earth Ed. Just went through wind turbines, like how their no. of blades and blade length and blade pitch affect power generated.

Slide presentations went well after dinner, due to the extra back up info of research, others were very nice also.

Major Learning points -

Wind turbines generate power at 3 to 4 no. of blades, at around 7.5 to 10 cm(scale wise).
Plenarians can generate any part of their body when sliced up.

Some Pics:

Day 4 Reflections
Itinerary :
Travelled to Healesville in the morning and spent the better part of the day there.
Then, there was the cultural presentations that were mostly entertaining and humorous.

Major Learning points -

Other countries' culture, especially much about Melbourne and Moscow due to their fantastic presentations.

Day 5 Reflections
Itinerary :
Last day then. I started out with a workshop of Quantum Universe which was somewhat interesting; quantum tic-tac-toe was fun, whereas astrology calculations were somewhat tedious and not fun.

Then, the Closing Ceremony. We won a few awards including 2nd place for the Melbourne City Challenge, and there was the Science Communication Challenge, which my group won ...

Reflections, there always is one. But. This one was fun. We were given a mosaic piece to decorate where JMSS would then place up on their school walls and we also had a reflection which was recorded in the studio.

Finally, the Disco. To sum it up in a word:
CRAZY . Everyone was dancing and bouncing madly with the DJ's beat. I shan't elaborate more on this.

Finally, Farewell. How time flies, we parted ways with our newly made friends as we separate our paths, hoping that they would intersect another day. Or I quote from a friend: "We Will Meet again. It IS written in the stars"

Final Reflections:
Overall, its a wonderful, fascinating, so very very good trip to Mel'. Ive learned a lot from the fair itself, whether is it the way the Universe end, or how planarians can regenerate any part of their body,literally. Although the science fair was very beneficial and interesting. The chance to visit Melbourne was greater. I'll miss all of you guys, Michelle, Michaels, Gabe, Riz, George, Amy, Carl and so many others. And I suppose it would bearing to say that I hope to meet you guys. I would definitely meet u guys again. Very well, its the end and see ya all!!!