Singapore Exchange Visit January 07

[OZ_341]

This past week a group of 22 students and teachers from Singapore visited with Team 341 for a week long cultural, educational and technological exchange. The exchange experiences the kids had were wonderful. In addition to Wissahickon High School, they made exchange visits to DeVry University and North Montco Technical Career Center.
There were so many special moments, including watching a group of teenagers play in their first snowstorm. Singapore is 80 miles north of the equator, so they were very excited to see snow.
The Singapore robotics team also came to the USA to compete in the FIRST VEX Regional in Delaware. We are pleased to announce that the Singapore S.M.A.R.T. robotics team is taking home two trophies, winning both the FIRST VEX "Amaze Award", and the overall FIRST VEX Regional Championship in partnership with teams 1712 and 2055.
On behalf of the Singapore Team, Thank you to everyone for opening up their hearts this past week. It was an amazing and rewarding experience for all involved. These kids were very far from home, most had never left their country before. The Singaporean students were deeply appreciative of your help and friendship during their visit. We also wanted to say a special thank you to Vincent Frascella, BAE Systems, and the NJ FVC Committee for supporting these kids during the visit.

I will post a few pictures from the trip shortly.

Alan Ostrow
Team 341

[Gigaman2003]

oh man.. i can't believe i missed this for SO LONG...

for some reason i searched CD for Singapore today and was really surprised when i discovered that there actually was a FIRST movement going on!

Anyway a lot has changed since you first visited two years ago...

the millenia institute has received a smexy new school... as im sure you are aware of the government seems to be spending a great deal of money on these ultramodern schools lately. too bad i moved here before my schools were rebuilt i lived about a mile away from the old campus, one of the boys who went to the nearby canadian international school is now in my school... this world is quite a small place after all :x

temasek secondary has also been privileged with a new building of its own, quite a cool design.

and... the biggest surprise of all... i can't believe that you guys went to CHIJ! a lot of my good friends from primary school went there (maybe you've even met some of them ). its been 4 years since we left primary school so they are all now suffering because the O level examinations are going on... i hope they do well.

Anyway a little more about my history and how i ended up in FIRST...

My primary school was Nanyang (prime candidate for for strictest teachers in the world). I was the winner of the first lego mindstorms robotics competition there back in 2002, and since then the robotics program seemed to have lost momentum and shut down... Quite depressing indeed. NYPS is one of the top primary schools and has an affluent allumni and student body. Most of the students graduate into the best schools and end up as elite leaders of the country. Recently this seems to have changed... My two cousins are studying there now (my entire father's side of the family has studied there, my dad, uncle and cousins were punished (by sometimes the SAME TEACHERS) in the same classrooms i was!), and when I went back for a visit last year I saw that the whole technology movement had stopped after I left. Everyone wanted to just be the best soccer player, or draw the best... Not exactly very FIRST like

There is no safety net in our education system.

I entered Clementi Town secondary in 2004 after i got a B on my PSLE Math paper. Maybe i slipped up shading in those evil ovals, or the machine grading the paper had malfunctioned. Either way, my fate was sealed; this middle-class school would be the best one my score would allow me to enter. In my second year at CTSS, a miracle. My dad had been requested to move to California as he was leading a project here. Despite my short stay at CTSS, I had found many friends and finally understood what it meant that you must fall down to get up.

And in 2005 I stepped out of san francisco international airport. The next year was tough but the education system here was amazing.. your pace, your choice of curriculum. you guys are luckier than you can every imagine. in singapore we have two hours less of school, but 10 subjects. some even take 12! my sophomore year (now) has been pretty amazing, mostly due to FIRST. I would never have thought that five years from winning that small competition in an even smaller country I would be on a team that won the silicon valley regional...

I am currently living in Danville, California. I see that you guys go to the Atlanta regional, so does my team. I would love to meet you guys next season, maybe even some people from my country who have survived that flight over . This has been a very fascinating two hours for me