I have quite a lot of things to talk about in this entry. So bear with my long, monotonous way of writing... Hmm, actually i think the reason for so is because i'm a boring person, not really because i have to write formally, because it is possible to write very interesting things even when it is formal. Anyway...

About Wednesday. This was the most successful day of rocketry. Being already the third day of the Sabbaticals, we were already much more succesful than before. Out of our six tries, we had five successful tries when our parachute opened beautifully. (The first time was due to an error in setting up, not in launching) The last try was the most successful ever, with the rocket landing exactly at 8 seconds and also 4 metres away from the target. Erm sorry, I forgot to explain the scoring system. In the system, the rocket must land between 7-9 seconds to obtain 25 points. if it was between 5-6s or 10-?s, 10 points will be obtained. And below 5s, 2 points. As for the distance, 25 points will be obtained if the rocket landed within a 5m radius. Actually, on that day, all our shots were between 7-9s, so that was truly successful. However, we were not satisfied, and I stayed back with Kai Yao (who helped me even though he was in a different sabbatical programme) to modify the rocket. We tested the parachute with Zhi Guang at the Science Block. It was very enjoyable. Somehow I was euphoric when I got home. There was this 'high' feeling.

On the next day, we only fired 3 shots, all which the parachute opened, despite being slightly worser than Wednesday. We also did a test on what we have learnt in LT4. Me, Ben and William went to the poolside cafe after that at the Hwa Chong Alumni Association/Swimming Complex. Saw Mrs Teng, my Maths teacher there. (I think she spoted me even though she was in the air-con area.) When I got home that day, I went outside to take some pictures of trees using my counsin's digital camera in a spur of the moment. Despite the hot weather these few days, the sunlight was really beautiful when it shone on the trees, so I somehow got tempted to take pictures of trees. I know i'm very wu2 liao2.

As for today, it was the competition day of the Rocketry Sabbaticals, when we had to compete at a team level and a group level. We were given 2 chances to launch, and the average score of the two tries would be taken. Competition would be fierce since there were about 36 teams in the whole programme. Here, our strongest competitors were supposed to be Yuan Chang's team as well as Zhi Guang's team, both of which did more succesful than us previously. As we were Team 1 of Group 1, the four of us, me, Ben, Lim Yi and William had to fire the rocket first. However, the first shot was disastrous. Our fuel (water) and the air pressure was insufficient to sent the rocket high up into the air, so it only stayed for 4.4s (2 points). Despite this, our second shot was successful, and we obtained 25 points with our 8.9s shot. The total was 27 points. At first, we thought that our hopes were dashed, and that other teams like Yuan Chang and Zhi Guang's would win. However, it turned out that Yuan Chang's second shot backfired, so they got 25 points in total (first shot: 25, second shot: 0). Zhi Guang's total was 35 points (I think).

However, this temporary success proved to be short-lived. In the group level competition, where we competed as a group and the total score of each group would be added up, we screwed up and only got 2 points for the whole group of four of five teams! This disastrous result was due to many factors like the angle and wind direction. Sadly, my rocket's head even broke off when it crashed straight down into the ground. (even though I fixed it later). Therefore, eventually, we did not win anything even though we were the best group with the highest total points in the team round of competition if you add up all our scores. (We had three teams of more 25 or more points). So this was the sad ending of the Rocketry Sabbaticals. Haiz. Never mind, it was extremely fun anyway.

So, that is all for now. Bye!


posted by Gimmicker at 6:20 PM

Hi. I'm currently in the school library tying this blog entry. Here, I will talk about what happened in today's Sabbatical programme.

Hmm, the Sabbaticals are really fun. Today being the second day of the Sabbaticals, we experimented with attaching a parachute system for the rocket. However, the process was not as smooth as yesterday, when we were guided step-by-step in making the body of the rocket. In the beginning, the four of us, me, Ben Toh, Lim Yi and William (from Lim Yi's class) faced quite a lot of difficulties. Firstly, our plastic bag (for the canopy of the parachute) was too small and we also had no strings. This problem was solved when Ben took a big black plastic bag (generally used during collection of rubbish) and divided it into two for our two rockets.

However, the actual process of making the parachute was not easy and we took quite some time to make it. Lim yi and William's parachute was cut into four pieces by mistake, so they had to piece them together. Then, the fixing of the strings also took time as we had limited tape and eventually needed to borrow some. After everyone's rocket was supposedly ready, we went to ther field to launch the rocket.

During the launching, almost everyone's parachute did not open up initially. Some people's dummy stage of the rocket did not open up at all, while some was due to problems of the prarchute itself. Likewise, ours were quite problematic at first, and during the first two tries, our rocket went high up... and crashed nose-dive into the ground. So, it seemed quite pathetic, but after analysing our problems, we made some adjustments to the parachute. Finally, during our third time, the parachute successfully opened in mid-air, and landed beautifully on the ground. At this point of time, it seemed that everyone else's problems had already been rectified, and thus their's were also successful. Jian Ting and Chong Chen's rocket was special in a way as their parachute opened up suddenly only after crashing for a few metres, thus landing safely for two consecutive tries. Despite this, I consider their's more successful than mine. As for mine, after that successful attempt, the rocket somehow "disintegrated" and is currently broken. This was due to the roughness of the person who helped us picked it up. *Sigh* So now I have to fix the whole rocket at home...

Nevermind. Despite this, today was really exciting. Bye!

posted by Gimmicker at 11:59 AM

Hello, everyone. Just realized that the blogger interface has changed. I feel that its much nicer now. So let me talk about yesterday before I go now to today.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I went for the CO performance by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) which was specially for mothers. So the name for the performance is xian4 gei3 ma1 ma1 (for mother). However, the irony was that my mother did not go with me but I went together with two other Xian Yue Section seniors. This was because my mother had to help my brother with his revision. The conductor was Quek Ling Kiong. I think he is our TCHSCO's percussion instructor. (is it?) The highlight of the performance is supposed to be my Erhu teacher, Xu Wen Jing soloing one song.

Because this performance is for Mother's Day, it was special and innovative, unlike the usual performance style. In the first half, seven of the songs were joined together, with children from the Young People's Performing Arts Ensemble reciting poems (obviously in a very sheng1 qing2 manner) while the SCO performed, at the same time following the beat. The most interesting part was when the SCO played ma1 ma1 hao3 (the song: shi4 shang4 zhi3 you3 ma1 ma1 hao3...) Even though this song is already quite droning to many of us, it turned out rather interesting because it was rearranged. The song was played in a very jazz (so-called mordern type) style that created a very refreshing effect. At one point of time, the conductor was acting cute (but he really turned out cute lar) and make hand gestures of twinkling stars.

Then in the second half, the first song was by my teacher. The song was liang2 zhu4 (The Butterfly Lovers) based on the tale of liang2 shan2 bo2 yu3 zhu4 ying1 tai2. Then followed my fan2 hua2 ru2 meng4 (Luxurious as Dreams), which was a combination of tian1 ya2 ge1 nv3, ye4 lai2 xiang1 and bu4 liao3 qing2. The next three songs and the first encore song was sung by veteran singer Poon Sow Keng (accompanied by the orchestra). Lastly, the final encore piece was again the ma1 ma1 hao3 song, which after the rearangement, indeed brought the atmosphere to a climax.

That night, I saw Andrew and his family, so we went for dinner together. Honestly, if I had the choice, I would rather not since I feel so out of place there. And his father was firece-looking... Anyway, Andrew kept talking non-stop about his RICO. He is really very enthusiastic. He even plans to go for the SCO concert that was organized for 4-8 years old children to get the experience of feeling the instruments. And by the way, yesterday was Andrew's birthday.

Enough about yesterday. Today was the start of the second Hwa Chong Sabbaticals. I signed up for rocketry. Somehow, our class seems to like rocketry very much. I think more than 20 signed up for this course as compared to some classes with only 2. The course is really interesting. We formed groups of two which were later combined to be groups of four and constructed the rockets. After which, we went to the field area beside the track to fire our rockets. Jie Yu's flew the furthest. From the bottom the of concourse, it flew to an altitude of about six storeys (exaggerating?) and almost flew out of the school compound.

After the flight, we were taught on the principles of flying. So for tomorrow, we are supposed to devise a parachute system for the rocket.

Next, after the Sabbaticals, we had Science lesson. Mrs Teo gave back our Science Term test paper. This time my marks were 41.5/50 (83%). I'm already very happy and contented with this result since i was the lowest in Science last term (80%) despite being average.
Of course, I will work harder to obtain better results.

Looking forward to tomorrow's Sabbaticals. Bye!

posted by Gimmicker at 7:50 PM