F1 @ KK, 2-4 Oct 2007

What? Only now?
Yeah... finally, a post.
And the friggin' 'add image' thing won't pop out. Ugh. The frustration. I can even go to the living room and watch the Nadal vs Ferrer match and the page still won't come out. Lol.
10 minutes past..
Oh babi-ness, still won't come out. I guess I'll keep typing.

This post is about the F1 In Schools Technology Challenge that I participated about a month ago.. haha. But the competition was over 3 months, starting around June where teams had to come up with a 5-page portfolio and submit it to the F1ISTC in Malaysia..rather Sarawak, I think.

First, there were so many students in my school joining and teachers had this idea of eliminating groups which didn't .. I don't know how to put this but it's kinda like 'less potential' of winning. haha. Teachers-in-charge asked groups to present using PP, together in it are the initial car designs (hand-sketched & CAD), team name, motto, sponsorship matters and etc. All that had to be done in 2 weeks or so. Have to modify some more.. Just when I thought this was hard..

Then a few weeks later, results for the teams which were qualified for Regional Finals were announced at www.f1inschools.com.my. Sarawak was in Zone 6 together with Sabah and Labuan. Oh well, being the BL we are, haha.. all 4 teams from BL were qualified. Ooo.. it's sure gonna be loads of fun when we're in KK. So throughout the August school break and the whole month of September, we were all constantly working our bums off, eyes on the computer/laptop screens, brainstorming, modifying, discussing, meetings with teachers and members, going out to look for sponsors, and staying back at school for almost every school day. 99% stay back. That's why I as so busy then! Going out looking for sponsors is just not my thing because I just don't like asking money from people. haha.. Have to be 'professional' some more.. but every team has to look for sponsors to keep the team going. We had to have our own team corporate uniforms, merchandise for marketing, spray paint for the car, and so on. Left-overs from our budget goes to the school PTA (sadly and yeah, we can't keep it.. sobs). I fact, everything that belongs to the teams, belongs to the school after the competition ends, except our uniforms and merchandise. Things like monetary funds, backdrops, banners must be kept in school and we can't bring it home. We were all thinking of putting our team banners up in our room wall, but... sigh.

The last few days before leaving for KK was hectic!! Teams from my school only managed to manufacture our cars the week before competition. And one car takes at LEAST 2-3 hours to manufacture. Manufacture meaning cutting into its shape, no tyres, no paint job, nothing. Naked. (The cars are cut from Balsa wood, it's very light. Cut using Denford CNC machine. There's a computer programme where you have to press some buttons and so on to start the machine and there's a knob on the machine to control the speed of the cutting). It's complicated, but we had an F1 official there to help us. So we skipped, ahem, were excused from school. i missed class for about a week. That includes precious Add. maths, chemistry, biology.. I say precious cause every little bit of information is precious. Physics wasn't much of a problem because my physics teacher was involved in the competition as well, so she was busy. On Thurs, Fri, Saturday and Sunday before competition, my friends and I who were in the competition was at school sandpaper-ing the car, making it smooth then putting tepung penyumbat on it, sandpaper, put, again and again until it's so smooth that you'll go crazy doing it for days. After that, have to spray the car with white coat 3 times and after each time, have to sandpaper the car. Then spray with base colour, and the other colours. For my team, we added stripes so, it was a lot of work. Lastly, spray with clear paint. Multiply all that paint job and finishing by 3. Each team needs 3 cars for the competition. 1. Race 2. Spare 3. Display.

On Sunday afternoon, (i know, what the hell? A Sunday?!) teachers brought all teams to SMK Matang Jaya to test run our cars. My car wasn't done yet, so it was still in the white coating. And coating was only half-way of the paint job. Competition was on Tuesday. After test run, went back to school and then went home in the evening. When I wished there was coffee to keep me active and awake, I was already too tired and lazy to make it.
Monday- our teachers-in-charge (TIC) wanted to prepare us for the competition so they made us set up our booths in the school hall on Monday for booth presentation. Okay, it was hell for a couple hours with teachers and students coming in to visit our booths. Interact. Be friendly. Be approchable. Be confident. SMILE =) I was so glad after mock booth presentation was over. Then, we all went back to the KHB workshop a.k.a. bengkel to continue our car finishing. The bengkel was where all of us spent our last week before the competition. Oh, the memories. aahhh. Made all kinds of sounds, sang, laughed, ate and smelled sawdust, ate KFC Zinger burger, twice..

Tuesday, 2nd October- Stef picked me up and we both went to the airport. Check-in was.. haha... SMKBL was the largest group out of the whole Zone 6 and we had so many stuff. tubes for banners, boxes for other props and nazmi even brought his PS2!! that's insane. 3 days in KK and most probably boring nights, not a bad idea after all. But we had our laptops with us :) and Eric's laptop filled with a variety of tv series, reality shows, songs, etc. When we went to the gate everyone was gone and i think we're the last ones and everyone was waiting for us. Lol. Our seats were scattered. So we were all practically sitting with other people.

Reached KKIA and boarded a bus to Kompleks Tabung Haji, where we all stayed for 3D,2N. there's no shopping mall 1km radius around that area and it's located in the kampung area. It wasn't bad, it was ok. Just that, I expected too much. haha.. It's a kinda like a Muslim place some more. (I was hoping for 4 or 5-Star hotel. Oh come on lah, JPN didn't even wanna sponsor 2 of our teams to KK. JPN was suppose to cover all expenses, air tix and accomodation+food. And there was some conflict going before the competition saying that JPN was only gonna sponsor 2 teams. Pft). We went to our rooms, unpacked and dressed in our full attires for the presentation. That's the first part of the regional finals comp. Teams will meet with a few judges in a room and give a 5-minute verbal presentation. Present whatever is important to get good scores and then the judges will ask questions. random questions. It was about 30 minutes per team for the presentation. Nerve-wrecking, yes. Before that, teams were quarantined in a waiting room. I walked back and forth the room so many times, wiping dry my sweaty palms. None of my team members prepared scripts, we went in, spontaneous. Didn't be too rehearsed. Eww.. haha. it turned out good anyway.

Had dinner after the Muslims had sahur, I'm not sure bout the spelling. Correct me if I'm wrong. And then I was up all night preparing for tomorrow's booth presentation. putting on double-sided tapes on the banners and stuff, editing video. All that, I did it in someone else's room. First, in Eric's room which looked like a store room the whole time because he had his AeroFlow© Eagle iron stand, AeroFlow© flourescent light sign, toolbox, wires ,etc. It was loaded. haha. Emm, Tan had their stuff in there too. When they wanted to sleep, I went up to teacher's room to do some editing cos' my room was occupied by unwanted occupants. I don't wanna elaborate here. It was just uncomfy to work with people i don't know around me. I ended up sleeping around.. 2am. And woke up at 530 to shower and breakfast at 630. 7am meet at the lobby with all the props for the booth. Before that, have to register our car 1 and car 2 for specification reasons. It's part of the aspects for point scoring. Only 1 hour to set up booth. And surprisingly, my school did a heck of a job. I'm not and don't want to trashtalk bout other teams but my school was the only school where our booths were fully fitted, decorated. There was absolutely no more space for other stuff on the walls of our booths. We could hardly walk around in our booth with ease. I was standing outside my booth for most of the time. While the booth p. was going on, the races were also going on. when it was our turn, the officials would call us up to the race track and my friends from other teams would take care of our booth. We took turns.. lol.

The booth p. and races ended at around 2pm. Only valuable stuff like laptops and LCD projectors were brought back up to our rooms and the other were left in the hall for tomorrow's VIP booth p. As Emm said, "Cikgu, apa yang tak bernilai?" Lol. Of course everything was valuable. It was our hardwork for months, but we won't have much time to set up again the next morning though. That Wednesday night was awesome! I'll tell bout it in another section.. hehe. We begged and persuaded our teachers with our form 4 teenage charm, asking them to bring us out since one of our team clocked in 2nd fastest in the race. so we did go out. And went back to the complex at 10 cos' that mall closes at an amazing 930, so early.

The next morning, Thursday, i woke up late! hahaha.. AutoFreaks© knocked on my room door and woke me up.
Rick: Eh, breakfast now.
Me: (smiled) I overslept.. oh ya. (closed the door and took a quick bath.
My roommates were Muslims)

Apalah.. mana tahu when I went down to the restaurant, nobody. Rupa-rupanya NO BREAKFAST. Ish. The Muslims already had their meal in the morning.

Then i went to Eric's room and we, Chinese kids ate ...................... (not gonna tell you here) haha. We shared, okay. Oh, just like brothers and sisters. haha. Feel the love. After that, went down and had our final booth p. for the VIP/VVIPs. Then was the results and prize giving ceremony. Being teams from BL, our teachers and the school had high hopes and that was the weight we had to carry. We all expected to win and other schools see us as a big threat. The big fish in the pond. At least that's what I thought they should be thinking of. haha. At last.. *drum roll* (not as exciting as when in KK).. haha. We grabbed 3 out of 6 awards given out.

Best Marketing & Sponsorship: AEROFLOW©
Overall 1st Runner Up: AUTOFREAKS©
Overall Champion: Light Speed©

We did it! We sapu! We gulung! haha. my team didn't win anything but we got an overall 8th place though. I'll give credits to my own team :D

Overall 8th place: Swift Stream©

haha. So we cheered and, I was so happy for them. Cos' we worked together! And whoever said we did not co-operate and work together, you'd better take that back. Or if you don't want to, it's fine. At least we know we did and you weren't there to witness it happen. *bitchy stare, waves hand in a Z shape and snaps* hmph.. haha. we had so much fun TOGETHER at KK although we were competitive among ourselves when it comes to serious business. We had to, to show some colour and intimidate our competition. haha.

Went back to Kuching that very same day, at night. Packing was alright for me cos' I didn't bring boxes of stuff but for Eric.. haha. I think he used cellotape like no one else. Before leaving for the airport, teachers brought us out to the Filipino market and lunch. The weather was steaming hot. So.. I did buy some stuff.. I'm not such a good shopper, especially when I have limited funds. haha. Melvin and Liew had plastic bags of goodies for the homies back in school. haha. Then went back to take our luggage and boarded the bus to the airport. Man, BL was noisy in the bus. haha.. laughing and poking fun. Reached the airport and check in our loads of stuff. This time we had good seats okay! We weren't sitting alone anymore. Hallelujah. Flight was delayed. Had dinner at the airport KFC. Again, we boarded the plane last minute. haha.. It was like 'last call' already I think. I slept during the whole flight. too tired I suppose. I think Rachel's mp3 was still in one side of my ear. Maybe it was God's music that made me sleep so soundly... ;P I was so blur when she passed me a bun when I woke up. haha. Reached Kuching around 10pm. Took a group photo at the arrival hall, all of us in our Maybank & AeroFlow© sponsored corporate shirts. Thank you :D

I couldn't hold my pee any longer so I went to the toilet. Came out and looked for my luggage.. Damn! Can't find. haha.. Whoever put my bag on the floor, *toot* haha. I panicked okay! I thought it was lost or mixed up somewhere on another plane or maybe they didnt even put my bag on the plane to Kuching! Ugh. Hallelujah. I kept my cool and found it. My precious clothes in side arh and my Winnie the Pooh towel.. haha.

My dad picked me up. I went home and showered. Oh, the cooling water that runs on ... don't think otherwise. haha. It was so hot. And what more to say, History paper the next morning and I.. haven't studied that time. And I think you can predict the results of my exams lah. haha.

My oh my. what a long post. Hope ya'll read till you need a toilet break half-way reading. haha. Will continue on the events that happened during the KK trip in another post. Need to refresh my memory a little bit. Lol. Happy reading, happy blogging and goodnight.

xoxovon

I'm alone. I'm hungry. I have a golf club beside me.

For more information on the F1 In Schools Technology Challenge, check out http://www.f1inschools.com.my/