ISEF 2011 Day 2

I didn't take many photos from Day 2, because it was mostly project set-up in the morning to the afternoon. We had breakfast at Denny's (can't recall the exact name).

A "Grand Slamwich" (toast, cheese, eggs, bacon and ham) with grits (the fried potato at the back)

I got bored while waiting for the bill so I twisted a paper napkin into this rose. It's a great model with a simple concept (twist the periphery of the napkin while holding the center) that can give beautiful results with a bit of practice.

Here's a shot of Los Angeles Convention Center's Tom Bradley Exhibit Hall, where the judging would be held.

View from the hall entrance.

The large boards in the background near the center is the HUB area, where volunteers man stations like an information booth and a booth giving stickers that allow you to take things out of the hall.

A plan of all the categories, their booths and the various languages spoken by the finalists there

We took so long to get the huge frame of my poster up that my supervisor and I actually appeared (at 0:23) in the short video montage of the "Intel ISEF 2011 Highlights":

My initial set-up (two frames hinged together at the middle)

After we put everything up on the table, we asked the ISEF officials to do a Display and Safety Check of my display. My display ran into problems because the sides of the frames extended beyond the sides of the table; the entire display had to fit within the boundaries of the table. The safety check official was very helpful, but he  immediately started giving some very scary suggestions:

Official: "Don't worry, we've sorted out many oversize projects before - let's ask someone who has actual experience in that."

The official brought another volunteer from the HUB to my display.

New official: "I don't see a problem, if we saw here and here, we can superimpose the pieces to fit them within table."

Me: "(shocked) Maybe we can just solve this just by closing the hinges a little?"

Official: "How about we remove the hinges, remove the table and stack the two frames one above the other?"

New Official: "Yeah, they're not so strict about the height restriction, so that would work."

Me: "(closing the hinges so everything fit inside the table) How about this?"

Officials: "Oh, I didn't notice that! Thanks for telling me before I destroyed your project!"

I can't remember the whole exchange, but it went something like that ;)

We visited a huge supermarket near the hotel where I bought water, chocolates (for souvenirs), bananas and two boxes of strawberries to share with my roommate. Listen on to find out what happened to the fruits XD

That night was pin exchange, where all 1543 ISEF finalists were in one hall in J W Marriot Hotel and we exchanged collar pins and badges from our countries. As the program booklet promised, there were "food, music and good times for all".

Some tables for us to have dinner and chat at

I came armed with 30 NUS High School badges and 100 pins from the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair 2011. I had a bit of dinner, during which team Singapore met a Canadian who was born in Singapore and had studied in Raffles Girls' School before she left, as well as Saaket from Ohio, who we would be run into very often during ISEF. I'd been learning Japanese for a few months so I was eager to test it out and i searched for Japanese finalists while exchanging pins. I soon ran into Morikawa Yoshito (森川 義仁), who I had no problem identifying because he was wearing "日本" on his shirt, as all the Japanese finalists turned out to be.

Me: "あんなたはにほんじんですか。" (are you Japanese?)



森川さん: "ええ、にほんじんです。" (yes, I am Japanese.)


Me: "いっしょにしゃしんをとりませんか。" (do you want to take a picture together?)


森川さん: "うまい!  うまい!" (wow, pro! - referring to my Japanese)

He may have said that but I know I'm still a beginner - see how I type all my Japanese in Hiragana :)

森川 義仁さん

Other than the Japanese with their "日本" jackets, a few other teams had special dress too, including the Koreans who wore Hanboks. The team from Argentina made a ruckus a few times:

I had nearly finished exchanging all of my pins by the end of the event. As I made my way out of the hall, I spotted another Japanese finalist and I asked her if she knew any Japanese finalist who was from Ritsumeikan Junior and Senior High School (立命館宇治中学校 ・ 高等学校), since I will be going there on an exchange program this year. Turns out she was the only finalist from that school, and she was Kimura Mari (木村 麻里), who I'd communicated with a while back. She had presented her project (also about origami) at the International Students Science Fair 2010 in Australia, and my friends from NUS High who had also participated told me about her project. I had then asked her about the details of her project through email.

On the right: 木村 麻里さん

After exiting the pin exchange hall, I managed to finish off all my pins by camping next to the escalator leading down from the hall. That meant that I had more than 100 pins (I gave some away "for free").

Back in our rooms, my room-mate Yuan Jin and I put the fruits in the fridge that came with the room and I tried some of the strawberries. They were a little sour but nice and juicy, and they were great for a snack. When I took the box out of the fridge to take more strawberries, I fumbled and half the strawberries in that box tumbled out onto the floor. To save food, I washed all of them and ate them one by one without Yuan Jin, who resolutely refused to be part of the environmentally-friendly effort.