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They had to outwit their rivals in four rounds – an MCQ quiz, a hands-on challenge, an oral presentation and a buzzer quiz – before being crowned the ‘mightiest minds’ of their state. The RHB-The Star Mighty Minds upper and lower secondary champions can expect an intense battle at the national finals.

Participants from Malay College Kuala Kangsar showing the judges (from right) Oun Sui Leng, A. Alagesan and Loh Soon On their answer to the final question of the buzzer quiz, in which they were asked to match coloured balls to numbered tins based on clues given. Looking on is quizmaster S. Sivakumar (second from left).

Perak
THERE is always something new to be learnt from a stimulating competition such as the RHB-The Star Mighty Minds challenge. For example, the students in this state picked up the fact that China is the biggest rice producing country in the world, and that the most famous racquet sport is table tennis. In fact, those were the questions that got the students and quizmaster K. Sivashankar most boggled as almost none of the teams managed to get the anwers right!

Nevertheless, the team from Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK) showed that cool heads give mighty leverage when they were crowned the champions in the upper secondary category. MCKK teacher, Les Suzina Jamil said the competition was a good exposure for her students as it is a platform for them to practise public speaking. “My students may be good in their studies but they are not as good in public speaking. The oral presentation challenge was a good test for them,” she said.

Lower secondary winners:
SMJK Sam Tet, SMK Anderson, SM Raja Dr Nazrin Shah

Upper secondary winners:
Malay College Kuala Kangsar, SMK St Michael, SMK Sam Tet

Sabah
St Francis Convent students Kirane Anne Tangau (right), Charlene Chee and Georgina (left) with their wheelchair model for their hands-on challenge. They traversed the hills and streams to come to battle it out at the state capital. Indeed, students from schools in remotes areas such as SMK Nabawan and SMK Pitas at the Pensianan district endured journeys as long as seven hours before they reached Kota Kinabalu to participate in the competition.

For others, it was a challenge of a different kind when a group of Form Four students, who just formed the team five days before the competition had to battle against their older contenders. Lady luck was smilling on them when Adam Abdul Rahman, Jerry Mclean Jonis and Rifhan Irdina Jupri from SM Sains Sabah came out as champions in the upper secondary category.    [Edit : I know we were pitted against 100+ teams instead of 60, but this news is a bit depressing =(  ]

“The idea was for this team to gain experience so we had no expectations of them winning,” said teacher Mohd Sham Sidek, adding that the school also sent its team of fifth formers who had been preparing for the competion for several months. Jerry attributed their win to the indispensable resources available on the Internet. “We surfed the Internet to read up on the the RHB-The Star Mighty Minds challenge events that have been held in other states so far this year,” he said. He said his team focused on the questions that were posed to the participants previously as a strategy to help them win.

Meanwhile, students from SM St Francis Convent emerged victorious in the lower secondary category. They exceeded the achievement of their predecessor team which took the second spot in the competition last year.
“Initially, we were hoping to get through the first and second rounds,” said Georgina Tai. “After making it to the top five, we then realised that we might have a shot for the top spot,” she added.

Lower secondary winners:
SM St Francis Convent, Maktab Rendah Sains Mara Kota Kinabalu, SM St Michael Penampang

Upper secondary winners:
SM Sains Sabah, SM La Salle, SMK Limbanak

Kedah
Lower secondary winners (from left) Tan Wei Wen, Yeo Mi Xia, Chew Khai Yi and upper secondary winners (from right) Ooi Ting Qian, Ng Yu Yang, Choy Wang Lynn, jumping with glee.

Lower secondary winners:
SMKJ Keat Hwa 1, SMK Agama Yan, SMK Sultan Badlishah

Upper secondary winners:
SMJK Keat Hwa, SM Sains Sultan Mohd Jiwa, SMJK Sin Min

Penang
Lower secondary winners:
Penang Chinese Girls High School, Chung Ling High School, Chung Ling High School

Upper secondary winners:
Penang Free School, SMK Tinggi Bikit Mertajam, Chung Ling Butterworth

Selangor
IF THEIR counterparts in the 13 other states had it tough, Selangor contenders of the RHB-The Star Mighty Minds challenge had it doubly hard. The reason: entry was open to 120 teams per category in Selangor instead of the 60 teams in the other states. Which meant that there were two big groups of students who sat with nail-biting tension as they witnessed the first batch get slaughtered in the MCQ quiz. It was the survival of the fittest, and students who could think quick and act fast qualified for the subsequent three rounds of the competition. Students who were well read breezed through the MCQ quiz as some questions on general knowledge, such as the number of Harry Potter books which have been released as films certainly did not faze them.

“I read up on general knowledge and browsed through a few IQ books to prepare for the competition,” said Yeow Liiyung, 16, from SMK Damansara Jaya.
Oh really? Heh.  XP

However, some of the teams fumbled when the judges upped the ante during the buzzer quiz challenge. There were a few aspiring doctors among the finalists in the lower secondary cagetory, but alas, none of them knew that doctors have to take the Hippocratic oath before they begin medical practice.

This question stumped the finalists during the final buzzer quiz: Sammy comes from a poor family. He works as a mahout to make ends meet. What does Sammy do? When the buzzers stayed silent, the quizmaster offered the following clue: You can find mahouts in Thailand and Sri Lanka. A participant’s answer of “male gigolo” [edit : this was Yew Leung's answer]  had the audience in stitches!
It was not all about the battle of wits either when the students had a practical task during the hands-on challenge. The lower secondary students constructed a waterfall using rainwater as a water source while those from the upper secondary built an electromagnetic bird cage.

Lower secondary winners:
SMK Taman SEA, SMK Seksyen 3 Bandar Kinrara, SMK Seksyen 1 Bandar Kinrara

Upper secondary winners (the awesome survivors =D) :
SMK Taman Melawati, SMK Damansara Jaya (T2), SMK Damansara Jaya (T1) 

All champion teams from both categories won RM3,000 and a desktop computer for their school. Prizes for the first and second runners-up were RM2,000 and a digital camera (school prize) and RM1,000 and a colour printer (school prize) respectively while the third and fourth runners-up won RM500 and RM300 respectively. The nationwide competition, where teams of three compete in two categories — lower and upper secondary — is jointly organised by Star Publications and RHB Banking Group. The food and beverage sponsor is McDonald’s Malaysia. All 14 state champions from both categories will now come together at Berjaya Times Square on Oct 16 and 17 for the national finals to battle for the grand prize of RM6,000 and the right to be called the country’s “mightiest minds”.

Catch the students in action by tuning in to ntv7 at 7.30pm on Wednesdays.

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Jackpot : Triple DJ Win!

The number on our control said 24. We were laughing about colour blindness; our tags were orange when we were supposed to be in the Red group. Sitting there, waiting nervously for the competition to commence, I started praying.

I remembered Mighty Minds F123 in 2009 as a failed attempt to prove our mettle in the nerdy world of general knowledge, science and maths. This year, entering Mighty Minds F45 as puny Form 4s who have not (and never attempted to) cover even half the syllabus, it was only natural that we only expected to break into the hands-on activity and die there (or maybe not even break at all). In a nutshell, it was all supposed to be a learning experience for us so that we can (theoretically) terrorize everyone else next year. We came in green; we had virtually no coverage of physics beyond chapter 4 F4, no experience of chemistry knowledge starting from chapter 7 F4, and had the holy mindset of "Who cares? Screw Biology!". Only a miracle could get us through Round 1 at this point. Now, aren't you extremely curious about how we fared throughout the competition?

(Pauses to eat McDonald's Sausage McMuffin)

Well, in case you were wondering...or maybe not... YES, we DID survive Round 1. In fact, we had the 2nd highest score on the scoreboard (heck, 2 other teams had the same score too). Technically, we came in 5th for the entire round, losing out on time no thanks to our remote control, which "hanged" halfway. We didn't realize it either, until we saw our team's number on the screen, which prompted us to start flailing our hands in the air. So how did we do it, given that we came in with empty heads? Hey, the questions were all based on general knowledge and IQ questions, y'know. Seeing how walking talking encyclopedias existed in my group, we did pretty much alright. So, yes, we survived the ordeal with 130 points. Highest was 140 points. Don't laugh, general knowledge would be your killer if you're a textbook person.

After that, we had a quick brainstorming session with the Form 5s (who ALSO broke through) and Pn Loo. Feeling satisfied, we walked into the arena to face the gargantuan task of creating an unknown object using maths and science principles. Everyone has heard of making a volcano, carrying out electrolysis, creating a fan, and other stereotypical stuff. Call us shallow, but we've just never heard of making a birdcage which depends on "an electromagnetic system to trap the bird and a buzzer system". It took me some time to actually come to terms with what we were making. One of the major setbacks during this stage was the mindset that kept screaming "You can't do this! How on earth can you come up with something as big as that?".

Like it or not, I had to face it. The fact that I was team leader and my teammates depended heavily on my barking instructions was not of any help - it just increased the pressure on me. There was this egging feeling behind my head which kept telling me that I was wrong in whatever I did, making matters worse. The first thing I did was set Melanie to start building the cage, with Shu Wen's temporary help - WITHOUT ANY ELABORATE INSTRUCTIONS. That was, by far, my stupidest mistake.

Meanwhile, when the mistake was still unnoticeable, I took it upon myself to think up of the science concepts and how to incorporate them into the cage. Electromagnetism was something everyone learnt back then in Form 3. Even then, it took some time to figure out how to "detect" the imaginary bird and sound the buzzer, while simultaneously trying to reason with myself if creating a binary circuit was better than a separate circuit. If you must know, time management was such a pain in the neck. Due to my tendency to think more than take action, I wasted a whopping bulk of 45 minutes perfecting the concepts, while Melanie built the model, which turned out to be horribly unstable.

I spent at least 10 minutes "sightseeing" and realised that we were losing out on stability. Being highly fickle-minded, but knowing that something needed to be done, I was extremely disappointed that I did not try to change the model from there. Instead, I spent the next 15 minutes helping Shu Wen test the concepts and perfect the circuit structure. With 20 minutes left to go, we were satisfied with our separate circuits, which were considered very reliable, foolproof and idiotproof. All that was left now was to incorporate the systems into the model. But there was one problem....

We had no model.


See the direness of the situation? No? Take a look around you and you'll see cages standing strong and steady in every direction.


...I once read about this team that came in champions somewhere in the beginning of the year (or was it last year?). Apparently, their model was a failure too, until their leader decided to turn fate around within the last 7 minutes. Here, I had 20 minutes with my group. That was when I decided it was time to make a turning point. It was an idiot's job. I spent another 10 minutes twisting and turning our existing model and viewing it from different angles. In case you didn't know, our model was not even half done, with missing walls and an invisible roof. It finally led to me turning the cage upside down as it was, surprisingly, more stable that way. Then, I dabbled with theoretical concepts...

Our model did not use the extremely easy criss-cross concept like what other teams had done. Thanks to the fact that our base (now the roof) was square, I got Mel to criss-cross 4 ice-cream sticks and just place one set of it on the supporting sides of the square. We were lazy (and most importantly, running out of time), so I told them not to bother sticking the roof on - it was just placed lightly. Another criss-cross ice-cream stick set was used as the extraordinarily unconvincing door. Last but not least, where the hell do we get our base from?!?!

One obvious fact was that it was extremely risky to bother making a base at this time of crisis (it was now less than 6 minutes to the end of the world). So, what I did was humourously place our model on the aluminium foil provided. And stuck it to the sides of our failed model. And poked the jutting wooden chopsticks through the foil to "strengthen" it. With less than 4 minutes left, I told Shu Wen and Melanie to beautify our very ugly model while I cleared the table (it was part of the rules - points were also allotted for this).

We were forced to abandon our dear model by leaving the arena. It was really heartbreaking to see other teams' cages standing strongly on the way out. Of course, on the plus side, we were really happy to see our Form 5 counterparts' model looking good. I was moping, so Shu Wen became my eyes and noticed that many teams did not use the electromagnetic concept. Pn Loo then stated her disappointment with our team, saying that we should have concentrated on the model first, concept second. Then, there was the issue on time management, which I listened to guiltily. Our Form 5 team was used as a great example of teamwork. Convinced that we had lost in this round, I resorted to "forgetting everything" and just enjoying the chicken burger McDonald's provided. Talk about amateur depression.

Shu Wen's mother, Pn Loo, however, suggested that we try to come up with a draft for the oral presentation so that we can get to know our model better (or see how horrible it really is). It was no wonder that we were laughing our heads off when the judges took a look at our model. They were messing around with the buzzer and had a good time opening and closing the door, which was pathetically attached loosely to a rubber band acting as the trip device to close the door. No doubt, they DID look amused, but we interpreted it as them being tickled by our model, which was too funny and comical to exist in a serious competition like this. I met Yew Leung and we caught up a bit on old times while joking that our model was meant to catch clumsy penguins before playing hangman. There were a lot of really amazing hangman-solvers, as seen amidst us.

Soon, it was time to announce the final 5 teams, according to ranking.

The first team to qualify was (if I'm not mistaken), Blue 15, or B15, from SMK Taman Melawati.

The second team to qualify was R24, a.k.a. Red 24. I looked around to see which team would be bathed in glory as they made their way into the arena once more.

None did.

Then, Shu Wen screamed directly in my ear before I realised that our lame, aluminium-foil-wrapped, removable roof and unattached door model beat 28 other teams to clench 2nd place in the hands-on round. Turns out that it was the concept that was more important than the average aesthetic model. Suddenly, I was washed with enthusiasm and was so glad that I concentrated on the concept rather than the model (though it was risky job). Glad that our electromagnet was working well =D

What followed next was a blur. All I know was that R23, our other DJ team also made it, along with Yew Leung's team from Taman Sea and the USJ 12 team. Each team had to pick a ping pong ball to determine the order of presentation.

A = USJ 12
B = DJ (Team 1)
C = DJ (Team 2) - Us!! =D
D = Taman Sea
E = Taman Melawati

We had to line up somewhere nearby the stage, next to a very distracting dress shop *cough*Mel*cough*. Oral presentation was a letdown. Once again, I talked really fast and stumbled many times to catch up with my running thoughts. Yes, I talk fast, but it's considered VERY slow compared to my thoughts. Dumb, huh. Mel ended up talking for only a few seconds. Time management fail. On the other side, Shu Wen shone out as a debater. Oh yes, Team B (our F5s) did really well - you don't call 3 of them debaters for nothing.

Either way, we didn't die yet. We still had the buzzer round to go. It was during this stage that us Team C people really stood out. I managed to get a streak of correct answers towards the end, which cushioned us from falling back. The final question was the bonus, worth 6 points. Of course, if you get it wrong, you only lose 1 point. This, to me, was really really worth it. Mel saw some freaky sudoku concept in the question as she worked the question out based on a diagram. Shu Wen and I remained baffled since we worked out everything by statement form. When Mel said she was done, I quickly risked tapping the buzzer. After all, if we get something correct, we might get between 1-6 points. If we get something wrong though, we have an extra 6 points to cushion a tiny 1 point. Awesomeness.

Taman Sea presented their diagram after us, which was an obvious sign that we had gotten something wrong. They only presented halfway when the judges told them that they were "satisfied" in the second diagram. After them was our counterparts' team, which also got stopped during the second diagram. Teams D and B didn't get any points, though. Instead, 2 points were awarded to our Team C for getting the first 2 diagrams correct. We lost out on the 3rd diagram due to ignorance of detail...but it was still worth it, was it not? Better than nothing, definitely.

Fancy stuff and redundance aside....

5th = USJ 12
4th = SMK Taman Sea
3rd = SMK Damansara Jaya (T1)
2nd = SMK Damansara Jaya (T2) =D
1st = SMK Taman Melawati

The feeling of winning something like this was dizzying for us all. I just couldn't believe that a Form 4 team would be able to dash the dreams of all the Form 5s taking part in the competition. We came as preparation for next year and ended up winning 2nd place by accident. The fact that we beat our own fellow Form 5s came as a shock. Oh well, miracles, miracles.

Melanie, Me, Shu Wen

Well, thank you, Shu Wen and Melanie!!!!!!!!! You guys rock!! Without you, none of this would have happened. We've come a long way since suffering from the Birdcage Syndrome of fickle-mindedness. Forgive me for my shortcomings, I'll promise to do better next year. =)

Meanwhile, on the other side of Subang, Harmonix Youth Choir rocked the stage at Subang Parade to win first place (finally)! Well, I can't be in 2 places at the same time, so yeah. Congratulations to HYC too!

Good job, DJ. 1st, 2nd AND 3rd places achieved at state level. What more could our admins want to brag about? Y'know the answer =D

Oh yes...on a lighter note, I think someone from SMK Taman Melawati took my mechanical pencil. If any of you are reading this, I'm just going to point out that that's my favourite pencil and I want it back =P

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I Complain

After weeks of endless attempts to cram useless information into our heads, memorising numerous arbitrary moral values and their arbitrary definitions and finally, coming face to face with those horrendous, blasphemous results, it's once again back to the time of the year to start guessing the smart weirdos in our class of 3 Batai 2009.

Ahem.

Correction: Start guessing the REST of the smart weirdos in class. The number one post is indisputably Melissa's territory.

Oh great. Look at me now. I'm starting to get really exam oriented. And it's because of this I'm starting to grumble.

Look at what the education system is doing to us! Doesn't anyone notice our freaky mental dysfunction? We rarely touch our books the whole year and only start hitting the books a few weeks before the exam. The smart people might start a few months early for all we know. For what? To get good grades? To get that 'A' on our report cards and to rid the minor blemishes of 'B's?


What's the point?

Let's look at it from another perspective.

Decades ago, during our parents' childhood years, have you any idea what exams were for? They were mainly to see if the students understood what they learnt. Those who really do remember what they've learnt are the true genii.

Fastforward to today and ask yourself this question. What are exams for? If you answered ".......to show how much the students know/ have learnt/ understood", think again. Exams now are mainly to boast your intelligence, to show people how good you are at memorising useless facts you don't even need to know to continue surviving. And, not to forget, to secure scholarships.

Even the top students. Don't believe?

If you talked to any of them before(or, you are one of them), notice that if something or some random fact isn't going to come out in the next exam, the smart kid won't even bother remembering it. Or, if the teacher tells the students which chapters to study for the next term, nobody bothers reading the other "irrelevant" chapters which are not coming out.

So, are they really that smart? (I'm not bursting your bubble, okay? Don't throw eggs at me!)

I'm just hoping for that one day when the principal would turn up on the first day of school and say that all the exams throughout the year are cancelled. There would be no more streaming anymore, no more positions, no more handing in our workbooks. Just observe everyone. No one would touch their books ever again.

And boom!

One day, your biology teacher walks in, noticeably happier than usual, and announces triumphantly that today would be your end-year assessment. Observe how everyone's expressions melt to a glassy stare into space, their jaws opening unconsciously, becoming a playground for flies. It wouldn't make much of a difference even if your mouth was closed anyway, you're going to die soon.

Trust me, more than half of the school would fail.

Although it sounds sadistic, I'm waiting for that to happen. Then, we all know who the true nerds are [and copying homework can be made easier].

I mean, exams have even leaked into the teachers heads and started polluting their thoughts with "must-fail-students" thoughts. What is wrong with everyone?

An archetype for this is Pn Nomi, 3 Batai's happy form teacher. Why happy? Is it because she jokes a lot or has that rare sense of humour? Or maybe she loves to talk to our class to make us feel better? Or is she some revolutionary teacher who challenges the forces that be?

Nah. What nonsense. She's the teacher who successfully "failed" all the 3 Batai students. Which teacher has ever accomplished such a feat? In the first class?? Well, that's our perception of it. "Fail" means not getting an 'A'. The highest mark was TWO marks from an 'A'. Not much difference now, is it? Only two humans got that honour [Melissa and *ahem* I]. Why am I complaining then? See, it shows I'm infected too. The 'A'-grade disease. The percentage comparison. Everyone was so disappointed as "the BM essay marks pulled down everyone's percentage by 3% and above".

But anyway, that's not my point. My point is..........back to exam-oriented thinking. As the above shows, even teachers are infected. And once the students get the results back, what else can you, as a student, do? One girl who suffered from a chronic exam-oriented infection said she was going to tell her tuition teacher about this outrage. She said this was ridiculous and she needed to complain to her tuition teacher.

Honestly, what does she expect her tuition teacher to do? Is he supposed to storm after Pn Nomi, demanding an explanation and sueing her for giving everyone in the first class inexplicably undesirable marks only the last class kids deserve? Pht*. Now that's what I call ridiculous.

*Pht is pronouced as "PFFT" and is a legal word, used to express annoyance. Found in scrabble =D

If you inspect the Malaysian policy closer, you would realise our "kiasu-ness" might even be comparable to Singapore's, only difference being we practice a more corrupted version of it. Seriously.

Public exams questions "leak" out weeks or even days before the actual exam. Excuse me! Aren't we all supposed to be prepared for this ourselves? It's basically such an insult to know that you've worked so hard all by yourself and the invisible "forces that be" are now leaking out questions for the lower classes. Is this an exam or what? People are announcing the questions that might come out just so that we can score higher marks for the exam????

For heaven's sake, stop it!!!! The standard for grade 'A' is already so low and you're still doing all these??? Hey, Americans!! *Waves frantically* How would you feel if I told you grade 'A' is from 70-100 marks in the public exam????? It's dumb, isn't it?! While some others might argue that Eastern countries have a tendency to be exam-oriented, I find this ridiculous. Might as well scrape off all the exams.

Think about it, my fellow compatriots. What's the whole point of memorising so many facts only to throw them away later? So what if you know that Francis Light found Penang? So what if you know how the Japanese conquered us? Who the heck cares if your brain can digest all the moral values and their arbitrary definitions when you can't even apply them? For heavens sake, some people don't even know who the first man on the moon was. Or Genghis Khan. Or Napoleon Bonaparte (some people thought he invented Neapolitan-flavoured ice-cream). Let's learn all these other useful things, rather than study things we'd forget after the exam. It's time we make our syllabus global.

Wow. Enough exam rantings. I bet I'm boring you to death.

**********************************************

Some other weird happenings this week includes:

Power transition from Abdullah Badawi to Najib. Sigh, I do not wish to say anything else. When you've got nothing nice to say, just shut up. (Even the French know it).
Najib got his "dream team", which the rakyat (citizens) portray as "nightmare team".

Mr K (extra-curricular teacher) was joking throughout his entire speech during assembly. Some parts include ".....so much disciplinary problem when you're back in school.......you get apprehended.......the good news is, Liverpool won.....". And when he was praising the sportsmen in school, he asked each one of them to stand up for their respective sport when mentioned. Very few dared to stand up for some unknown fear. "Those who stood up are brave. Very good. Those who dared not stand up.......are also very good! Modesty, a moral value, has been applied.......". It soon became "misplaced modesty" and teachers have been criticising our class for that the whole week.

I don't know why I bothered to offer myself to perform for the school's MAC. Now, I have to arrange a song in 2 days.

No more complaints. Enjoy your weekend.

Cheers,
Ryx.

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Help!!!

Everyone is discussing their fate.

Everyone is taking action.

Everyone is their own hero.

SO, WHAT ABOUT US?????

We're slacking, that's what!!!

We're eating cookies and can't contact each other because we're suffering from Cookie Monster Syndrome.

Remember the Manglish post?

English : I think I’m going to be in deep trouble.
Manglish : Die!

That's what we're saying.

We're so dead. Literally. (Well, at least that's my perception....).

Now, let's be random and reflect on what the richest man on Earth has to say:
"Be nice to nerds. Chances are, you'll end up working for one".

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