Champions at Singapore Amazing Flying Machine Competition 2019

A year after sweeping multiple awards in the Singapore Amazing Flying Machine Competition 2018, our North Stars have done it again! After a week of intense competition, our North Stars clinched a total of 8 awards in various categories. This year’s SAFMC marked a record of 498 teams and close to 1,800 participants vying for top honours and awards in five broad categories, namely Paper Planes (for primary schools), Unpowered Gliders, Radio Controlled Flights, Autonomous Flights and Unconventional Flying Machines.  In the Unpowered Gliders category, one of our teams, the Soarers produced the best overall performance, out-performing more than 150 teams in the combined results of flight distance, presentation, theory of flight and creativity to clinch the Championship Award, 1st Placing!  It is the second successive year that our school clinches the pinnacle award in this category. In addition, our students’ hard work and commitment were also rewarded as they performed consistently well over five days of competition to clinch another seven awards across three different categories:

• Category B: Unpowered Gliders - Championship Award, 1st placing; Best Performance Award, 1st placing; Best Aesthetic Award, 1st placing; Most Creative Award, 2nd placing
• Category C: Fixed Wing Radio Controlled Flight / First Person View Flight - Championship Award (Fixed Wing RC Flight), 3rd placing; Best Performance Award (Fixed Wing RC Flight), 2nd placing; Best Performance Award (FPV Flight), 4th placing
• Category D: Semi-Autonomous / Autonomous Flight - Championship Award (Semi-Autonomous), 3rd placing

Our Category D team, comprising Koh Tze Wang (2E2), Khiew An Kai (4E2) and Valerie Lee (4E3), was the only secondary school team that took part in the Semi-Autonomous Flight, punching fearlessly above their weight against teams from the polytechnics and universities. All our participating teams displayed enthusiasm, commitment and resilience. Not only did the teams share resources and helped one another to improve their planes, they also cheered and spurred each other on during the competition, showing great unity and the North Star spirit. Nevertheless, there is still hard work to be done as our North Stars strive to do even better in the Presentation and Flight Theory components next year.  May our North Stars shine even brighter next year.

Bronze Award at 20th International Elementz Science Research Conference & Exhibition

Our students clinched a Bronze Award in the 20th International Elementz Science Research Conference & Exhibition this year.  It is an annual event organized by the MOE’s North Zone Centre of Excellence for Science @ Anderson Serangoon Junior College, to provide students with an opportunity to develop and showcase their aptitude and potential in Science inquiry through a scientific investigative-type project. The Guest-of-Honour was Mr Tan Bee Teck, MOE’s Chief Information Officer/IT Director Information Technology Branch and GovTech’s Cluster Director for Education. In this competition, our students sought a solution to make new paper from paper and vegetable waste, with the aim to meet the growing demand for paper whilst reducing food waste in Singapore. Considering the common inedible food wastes in Singaporean diet, the students shortlisted garlic skin and celery stem as these vegetable waste are highly fibrous. Over the course of February and March, the students prepared samples, performed experiments, collected data and designed a poster to present their findings to a panel of judges at the exhibition held from the 8 to 10 of April 2019.  Out of over 100 projects submitted from various local and international secondary schools, including established STEM schools such as NUS High School of Math and Science and the School of Science and Technology, our North stars have indeed made us proud by clinching the Bronze Award!

Merit Award at 10th Singapore Polytechnic National Earthquake Competition 2019

Our school took part in the 10th National Earthquake competition organised by the School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Singapore Polytechnic on 8 April 2019. The competition sought to cultivate students’ interest in Civil Engineering, specifically in the area of earthquake resistant structures. Each team consisting of four students was required to build an earthquake resistant three-storey structure using MDF timber strips and the structure had to support a 2.5kg load on each storey. The structure was then bolted to a two-dimensional earthquake simulator, i.e. 2D vibration table, and underwent 15 rounds of testing, ranging from an acceleration equivalent to 100 Gal (1 Gal = 1cm/s2 represents a unit of acceleration in seismology) to 1500 Gal along both the minor and major axes. The structure with the minimum deflection would be the winning structure.

Our team of Seah Han Rong, Austin, Choi Quan Long, Jester Tan Jun Yang and Isaac Hamid, all from Sec 3E6 competed against teams from 23 participating schools and won a merit award. The structure made by our North Stars managed to withdraw till the 7th Round of testing (i.e. 700 Gal). They spent a month building and refining the design of the structure, making use of their knowledge and skills acquired in Design & Technology and demonstrated the use of critical and creative thinking to overcome the problems faced during the construction.