Continuing from Day 1 yesterday (BTW, the photos are a bit darker at time due to flash malfunction. The battery leaked).

The exhibition hall at GMI:

Today was the big day for the teams. Both students and teacher will know who will be the champions for 2011.

The day started early at 7am with breakfast, followed by preparation for the public viewing session at 10am. So, the booth were a scene of hectic activity as students and teachers toiled to fix torn papers, top up materials, arrange their presentation and so on. In between, there was a talk on the judging process for the teachers in a separate venue.

Head Judge Mr Shan:

Students testing their equipments:

At 10am, the doors opened for public to enter the exhibition. The public session was until 2.30pm. Personally, I think the crowd was much less as compared to the Selangor/KL region fair held last year (that’s the one I attended, thus able to compare). Maybe because the hall is wider? Or is the location of GMI, which is quite secluded and relatively unknown to the Indian community? Anyway, I estimate about 300 to 500 people attended this fair today (excluding the students and teachers).

Attending to visitors:

Explaining to visitors:

Visitors:

Interested visitors:

Explaining their work:

Volunteers too are impressed:

During the public session, few booths were set up at the entrance. Among there are MISI (Malaysian Indian Science Intellectuals) who promoted their educational magazine for kids named Thumbi, DHRRA Malaysia, Arivan Fan Club (where I was on duty), Grolier Books, Tamil Foundation and so on. A few games and quizzes were held for visitor to liven up the environment.

DHRRA Malaysia booth:

Arivan Fan Club booth:

Quiz participants:

Telescope section:

At 3.20pm, the closing ceremony started. VIP was Dato’ Dr Jeyaindran of MyNadi. The crowd numbered about 800 people (including participants).

Participants:

First was speech by project director Capt Dr Viknesvaran. He said that 300 schools took part in the School Fair Roadshow, while the Science Fair saw participation of 274 schools this year.

Capt Dr Vicky:

This was followed by MCEF’s Mr Satish Ramachandran’s speech. He gave some suggestions on how to improve the fair for the coming year, for example focusing on certain theme, and also to compile CDs of the projects.

MCEF director Mr Satish Ramachandran:

Next to speak was head judge Mr Shanmugam who  mentioned about the judging process. He also mentioned that some of the teams needs to improve in terms of understanding the fundamental principles.

Head Judge Mr Shan:

Media appreciation followed, after which all the teams were invited on stage to receive participation certificates along with tokens of appreciation.

Presentation of participation certificates and tokens of appreciation to all the students:

This was then followed by MyNadi’s Dato’ Dr Jeyaindran’s speech. He announced that the top 5 winners will be given a trip to Petrosains KLCC and also to the Perdana University in Serdang. He also sprang a surprise by announcing that the 1st place winners (and the teachers) will be taken on a tour to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Bangalore!!! This is in collaboration with Air Asia and Indian High Commission. This is definitely a wonderful surprise for the participants, and added more tension to the tense environment. Everyone was waiting for the announcement.

MyNadi chairman Dato’ Dr Jeyaindran:

Two new categories were introduced this time: Most Innovative Project and Best Conference Paper. The winners are as below:

Most Innovative Project

Winner: SJKT Kangkar Pulai

2nd: SJKT Ramakrishna

3rd: SJKT Convent Seremban

SJKT Ramakrishna:

SJKT Convent:

Best Conference Paper

Winner: SJKT Kangkar Pulai

2nd: SJKT Sg Tukang

3rd: SJKT Yahya Awal

SJKT Kangkar Pulai:

There was another speech (to add to the tension!), this time by MISI representative Mr Saminathan.

Finally, the moment everyone was waiting for. The winners announcement.

5th place went to SJKT Mukundan

4th place: SJKT Methodist Kapar

3rd place: SJKT Permas Jaya

2nd place: SJKT Tun Aminah

Their booth:

and champions are SJKT Ladang Lanandron!

Their booth:

For the first time, the top three places were swept by schools from the same state, Johor.

The ceremony ended at 5.50pm, and the crowd slowly trickled away.

Photos Slideshow:

This is the 4th year running the Science Fair (http://www.nsfyc.org/)  is being organised. I attended the central region competition last year while the national level competition was held in Kedah, which means I couldn’t attend it. The organisers this time include DHRRA Malaysia, Tamil Foundation, Vijayaratnam Foundation, MISI, Tamil Schools HM Council, Malaysian Government, MyNadi,  ECMLibra, MCEF, Putera MIC, Astro and few others.

This time, its being held at German Malaysia Institute (GMI) in Bangi. The location is next to the KWSP training center. If you can find the UKM Komuter station, then you can locate GMI.

This year, 60 schools are taking part. Representative from each state is proportionate to the number of Tamil schools in the state.  Each region had their own competition and the selected winners are now in the final round at national level.

The list of schools:

The students (and teachers) started arriving on Friday afternoon. I was at the venue on Friday night, and helped around a little bit. There were some activities like looking at planet Saturn via telescope.

Yesterday (Saturday) started at 8am with the student and teachers preparing their booths.

Preparing the booths:

At 9.30, students were given written test, followed by judges going around judging the projects. This took nearly 4 hours. The judges led by my ex-school teacher Mr Shan were impressed with the projects. BTW, met some of ex-uni mates like Capt Vicky, Vicky Balan, Sathia etc.

Judging Session photos:

I found that the students are quite well prepared. Their projects were amazing indeed. I’m sure the visitors will be equally amazed with the exhibitions on display.

One of the schools that interested me is SJKT Sg Biong from Kuala Kangsar. They have four young participants (I guess Year 3 and 4),which represents HALF their school population! They were regional champions. Must thank the school and teachers for their dedication.

SJKT Sg Biong:

The afternoon program involved the opening ceremony, but I had left by then. At night, there’s a conference for the children, whereby each team will present a paper.

Today morning will see a “viva” session whereby the students will answer questions based on their conference paper. This will be followed by opening of the exhibition for public from 10am till 2pm. The event ends with prize giving ceremony at 3.30pm.

OK, gotta make a move now. Will update the results later tonight in next posting.