The Top 40 teams that made it from the Top 100 team pitching session on 7 September refined their presentations and came back to battle for the Top 20 places. Erin Tan reports.
The Top 40 Teams for this round. Photo credit: nemation.sg.
The judging sessions yesterday ran concurrently in three separate rooms in Nanyang Polytechnic.
Guangyang Secondary’s “Muscular Musclecles” with their catchy slogan: ‘Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is a progress, working together is a success. Teamwork makes a Dream-work!’
Each team had ten minutes to present their ideas and answer questions from the judges, with the help of visual aids.
Cedar Girls Secondary’s “Duck Duck Glucose” facing the ominously-placed timer, awaiting judgement.
It was an intimidating experience for some given that the timer was placed practically right in front of their noses!
Why do boys do that? These boys are practising their pitch facing a wall.
Most of the teams, however, managed to keep to the time limit.
The other teams waiting for their turns were frantically rehearsing and refining their pitches in two computer labs behind the judging rooms.
N.E.mation! 10 one-week selection
The annual NEmation! competition, organised by Nexus, marks its tenth anniversary this year, and the competition is already well underway.
Out of 475 teams that registered for the contest this year, 100 were shortlisted to pitch their ideas to judges on Monday to see which team would make the Top 40.
Yesterday, the third stage of selection was conducted – whittling down the 40 teams who made it through the first two rounds to just 20 teams.
I witnessed many different and dynamic ideas were produced, ranging from a tower of bricks made in the shape of the Total Defence logo shaped like a hand; to a dish with many ingredients representing the different elements that make Singapore unique.
There was even an extremely comical pun on the words “eyelid” and “I Lead” representing Singapore’s ‘vision’. Very punny!
All in all, the students had great fun.
Many of them I chatted with shared that they had had great fun and had learned many new things like teamwork, time management and spontaneity.
All the ideas seemed promising, with great potential, but in the end, only 20 could be selected.
The Top 20 Teams who emerged from the Top 40. Photo credit: nemation.sg.
Here are the Top 20 Teams that will head into the final selection round on Saturday.
N.E.mation! 10 has begun. Registration is now open and all it takes are there simple steps to start your journey that may win yourself and your team a trip to USA. Deadline for call for entry: 16 August 2015.
The central idea for this year’s N.E.mation! is “Together We Keep Singapore Strong”. Below is the synopsis.
“At the start of the next 50 years, it is a good time to reflect on and reaffirm the strength, values and beliefs that have brought Singapore this far and, more importantly, the values that reside within each and every Singaporean to take Singapore forward. Together, we will continue to play our part to keep Singapore strong.”
To give you some motivation, here’s a video featuring the trip of last season’s champion to the USA visiting some renowned animation studios, landmarks and famous attractions.
Not sure how to start crafting a winning story? No worries, here are some resources to help you get your creative juice flowing – view the free online Story Workshop.
The top 10 teams have completed their animation clips. These are now available for viewing at www.nemation.sg. You can now vote for your three favourite clips, and stand to win attractive prizes like the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3 and Nintendo 3DS XL.
Voting ends 9 February 2015.
Since there are four voting platforms, with 3 votes for each platform, you have basically 12 votes based on your NRIC number.
There are four methods to vote.
You can vote on one or all of the following:
N.E.mation! website if you’re on a desktop/notebook
N.E.mation! mobile website if you’re on a smartphone/tablet.
N.E.mation! is made possible with strong support from local partners from public and private sectors. In particular, National Library Board, Nanyang Polytechnic, Canon Singapore, WACOM Singapore and Toon Boom Animations Inc.
Do check out their clips and vote for them if you like their animation as well.
I’ve looked at all of the clips and spoke to some of the teams and feel these two teams are some of the most positive and enthusiastic kids I’ve come across in this latest installment of the N.E.mation! competition.
When we visited wasd in their final week of production, we discovered that they were very much ahead of schedule – and it looked like they’re going to finish with much time to spare! Erin reports.
Team wasd (Niger is just outside this snapshot) busy finishing up their animation clip.
On the second last day of the 3-week production, we visited Commonwealth Secondary School’s wasd at Nanyang Polytechnic.
There was a rather relaxed ambience in their cubicle, as they were close to completion and were simply doing rendering and touching up on the finer details.
All set for rendering.
They chose to do rendering in layers, instead of everything at one go.
Rendering in layers is to render different objects in the scene separately, in different layers, so that for each layer of objects, a different image is rendered.
The ticking clock that commences the day for the non-sleeping SAF.
We visited Team Elemonators in the third and final week of their 3-week production. The girls were going at completing their 1-minute animation by the end of the week. Erin reports.
The team Elemonators, with their two fluffy mascot bears, courtesy of Leanne.
It’s the third week and team Elemonators are speeding ahead hurriedly, close to the completion of their task!
The tools of the trade which occupy Esther’s workspace. To the right, near the NEWater bottle, is a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet, and a Lenovo computer.
The clock is ticking away for CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School’s Elemonators as they finish up their animation, already three-quarters through.
All they had to do was to finish animating the last few scenes of their animated piece, and then render it.
When we dropped by, the team was focused on the rotoscoping segment of their animation journey.
The vision of Intel Education’s initiatives is: Empowering Tomorrow’s Innovators. Here’s a peek into how Intel is plugging into the education scene.
From left: Eileen Lento, Ph.D; John Galvin; Sam Al-Schamma – key education advocates and leaders in Intel.
To most people, including myself, Intel is the leading chip maker that manufactures the processors in the computers that we use.
The company is also heavily involved in helping educational organisations and government bodies harness technology to reinvent teaching and learning for the younger generation.
Intel’s contribution to Education
To improve education in more than 70 countries, Intel and the Intel Foundation has, in the past decade, invested more than US$1billion, contributed more than 4 million employee volunteer hours, trained 14 million teachers, and helped 5 million people gain digital literacy.
I had the pleasure of listening to key executives in Intel Education over lunch earlier this week during the Bett Asia Leadership Summit in Singapore at the Marina Bay Sands.
John Galvin – a vice president of the Sales and Marketing Group and general manager of Intel Education at Intel Corporation – hosted the lunch and shared his experience in setting global strategy and implementation of innovative technology solutions to advance education worldwide.
This week, Commonwealth Secondary School’s wasd powers full-steam ahead in the production of their SAF-themed animation masterpiece. Erin Tan was on site to get to know the team members and to get the latest updates on their progress.
The team, wasd, with their mascot – Penguin the penguin.
Last Friday, we visited N.E.mation! team wasd, working studiously away in their cubicle in Nanyang Polytechnic.
They have been keeping very strictly to their schedule, as created for them by their mentor, and have made much progress in the making of their animation piece.
Niger and Zhi Qing talking enthusiastically about their progress of the previous week.
So far, the team has been able to finish most of the animation sequence, and were able to show us a fully-coloured, fully-animated sample of the final animation.
CHIJ St. Nicholas Girls’ School team Elemonators are working away diligently at creating their animation piece. Erin reports.
Leanne and Esther of the Elemonators hard at work!
Last Friday, we visited Elemonators in their cubicle in Nanyang Polytechnic.
Their mascot bears, courtesy of Leanne. They accompany and motivate the team on this difficult journey towards animation stardom!
This being the middle of the 3-week production phase, the Elemonators are going at full gear with their animation.
Notes jotted down about ‘pegging’.
It’s not all work and no play though, as the team had lots of fun, socialising with the rest of the participants and teams in NEmation, especially the team (Millennium Dragons, also from St Nicholas Girls’ School) in the cubicle next to theirs.
A common pastime was taking group photos in their workspace, with the assistance of members from other teams.
It appears that NEmation has been a great platform for them to socialise with people from other schools and standards, and gain new friends!
The team is creating a digital 2D animation sequence using Toom Boom Studio, based on the premise of four people performing acts of kindness for people around them, and in doing so, inspiring others to be kind too.
The Elemonators is one of three teams from CHIJ Saint Nicholas Girls’ School that made it into the Top 10 Teams in this year’s installment of the N.E.mation! competition. The storyline for their animation is both heartwarming and inspiring.
“We are the Elemonators! We eliminate the sourness and bring sweetness to your day!”
The Elemonators registered for N.E.mation! 9 back in August and have not looked back since.
Comprising four sprightly young ladies in the second year of CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School, the Elemonators were among a staggering 11 teams from the school that made it into the Top 100.
Team leader Melissa Anne Lim performed the mesh-up during the pitching stages with her guitar and sang in the final recording as well.
For those familiar with N.E.mation!, you may be aware that CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School is a powerhouse in the series of competitions, regularly boasting multiple teams that make it to the Top 10 and frequently represented in the eventual Top 3 winners.
While some schools field teams from their IT clubs/CCA, CHIJ St Nicholas Girls’ School opens the participation to all students in the school.
Which was how Melissa, Esther, Leanne and Sabrina came to form the Elemonators.
