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Today was the day. For 2 weeks I had been preparing and today is the day I would be giving it all. Today was Competitions day.

Like mentioned previously, I joined 2 competitions, the bridge building competition and Electrifying connections. One was a failure and the other is brought a little joy back into my body.

We had been preparing for the bridge building competition for 2 whole weeks, spending the weekend to come up with the design, spending the other days to do time trial to build the bridge in 40 minutes. We were prepared to take 4 penalty mark by getting more sticks to build the bridge. We were very sure that the bridge can hold my bag which is about 4kg. We were confident that our bridge will be the winner. But today's competition proved our faiths to be wrong.

We were instructed to build the bridge in an hour, 60 minutes. The whole time we were panicking about the time constraint and even decided to removed some parts of the bridge to cut short of time.

We were instructed that we would be given a slip of coupons which and only which that we are only allowed to redeem materials. 20 satay sticks, 1 rolls of masking tape, 20 straws. and we can only take penalty for only this much material, and not more of any. OUR DESIGN HAS FORCED US TO ACCOUNT 4 PENALTY MARKS AND WE WEREN'T INFORMED OF IT ON THE PRE-COMPETITION INSTRUCTIONS!!!! WHAT IS THAT, AND NGEE ANN POLY ENGINEERING STUDENTS READING THIS, TELL THE ORGANISER TO BE MOST DETAILED WHEN DISTRIBUTING INSTRUCTIONS!!! MANY WERE MISLED BY YOUR IGNORANCE!

We have done up 2 prototypes which we have tested to be able to manage 4kg weight of my bag. When we arrived to the competition field, WE WEREN'T ALLOWED TO HAVE OUR PROTOTYPES WITH US TO COMPARE WHEN ON THE PRE-COMPETITION INSTRUCTIONS WE WERE INFORMED THAT WE CAN!!! Furthermore, because we lack of sticks, and ended up with a frail design of the bridge, the bridge can only with 3kg!!!

Because othe bridge cannot withstand the weight of at least 4kg, where in the pre-competition instructions stated 5kg!!!!!!!, we were disqualified. However, I wasn't jealous of the winning teams, I saw their bridge to be very strong and rigid, and apparently they have the knowledge to build a strong bridge, although i do not know where the knowledge came from. Congrats to all the winning teams, especially Serangoon Garden Secondary School, all the teams did a good job clinching the first, second and third place for all their bridges and i have to say all the bridges looked fantastic.

However, I am very very upset with the organisers of the competition, THEY WEREN'T CLEAR WITH THEIR INSTRUCTIONS AND MISLED OUR TEAM WITH ALL THEIR BULL***T. FURTHERMORE, HOW CAN 120 AND IF PENALTY USED, 140 STICKS BE ABLE TO BUILD 2 LEVELS BRIDGES OF DIMENSIONS 1.00M BY 0.40M BY 0.20M. AND ALSO TO MAKE SURE THAT IT IS STRONG.!!! GO REVIEW YOUR INSTRUCTIONS AND DO CORRECTIONS TO THEM BOTH ON-THE-SPOT AND PRE-COMPETITION INSTRUCTIONS. MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE THE SAME AND LEADS THE COMPETITORS ON THE RIGHT PATH! DON'T WORRY I WILL REINFORCE THESE WHEN I SEND A COMMENT TO THE POLYTECHNIC!

After speaking out my heart, I felt much much much better.Right now I have only reflections on the Electrifying Connections. I have to say the competition is very tough. Especially the competition is done by level of difficulty of forming a electrical circuit. Last year we made it through level 3, which took us half an hour or more to complete. This year is no different, we were once again stumped at level 3, but this time we did not manage to solve the puzzle. 45min 45seconds 45 milliseconds, the time we took to try to solve the puzzle until the time is up. We lost very terribly. However our surprise doesn't stop there. During prize presentation, we were satisfied and prepared to lay back and clap for other winning teams. But that wasn't what happened. When the announcer called table 31, I just clapped, then until my team members told me that it was our team number. He called out our names, badly pronounced, to justify that he was calling the right team. We had won the merit prize!!! Wow, we had done so badly and still we won a merit prize, that is simply unbelievable.

Let me rewind back to before prize presentation, it was refreshment time and exhibitions. We had a meal consisting of Fried Bee Hoon, Chicken Wing, and one other thing which i don't know what it's called. Then we were bored and decided to go into exhibitions, or was it before the refreshments. We entered the same room we visited but instead, there was a live demostration going on there. I asked my friends to company me to the opposite of the room to view other exhibitions we had not seen. I decided to cut across from the front where the guy was having demonstration on this pen that you can use to paint on the computer by swinging it in the air while pointing on a screen. He halted me and i looked up. "Hi, would you care to demonstrate how to use this?" I was like WHAT?! I don't want to do anything that you are doing, I just want to get across the room. "Well, I would love to but I am not from this school and so you can get someone else to do it. " There I said it and was prepared to move away. He pushed the pen to my body andspoke, "Don't be shy, just press this button and write on the air while pointing towards the screen." Well, I was forced to do it and it will rude to reject him, furthermore he is old. So I took the pen and twirled it a few times. I stopped and looked at him and continued to twirl a few more times. Then, I made up my mind to stop and move, pronto. "Well, here you go. Thank you very much, I had a lot of fun." Sarcastically obvious. However he nticed my sarcasm and said, " apparently you are not interested. Who else would like to give it a try." Snatched away the pen and gave way. At that moment I was very embarrassed, i turned to look at the audience and they all stared at me. That is simply the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to me. That Fagging old man, how courteous of him, the least that he can do is to say thank you and shut up, no need to say all that i am not interested, obvious that i am not, and i was forced to do.

today was simply a distressing day and a lot of fury. I was angry with the organisers of th competition and the old man. NGEE ANN POLYTECHNIC IF ANYONE OF YOU READING THIS, GO TELL THAT TO THE PEOPLE I MENTIONED, PRONTO!