An assembly talk on respecting the elderly led three 10-year-olds at White Sands Primary School to create a computer game about a squirrel and his grandfather, while a trio of 11-year-olds at Mayflower Primary School came up with the idea of integrating thumb drives into spectacles to help pupils in their studies.

Youth Infocomm Day saw the appointment of 22 students as Youth Infocomm Ambassadors to help promote ICT.

The creative youngsters were part of the Infocomm Club Programme, which was introduced in 2005 to generate curiosity, interest and passion for infocomm amongst Infocomm Club Members. Their ideas were among the winning entries in this year’s National Infocomm Club Awards, which were presented during Youth Infocomm Day on 7 November. Guest of honour at the event was Ms Sim Ann, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Communications and Information, and for Education.

This year’s National Infocomm Club Awards featured two competition tracks based on the theme “Learning with ICT”. The infocomm club teams could either compete in the “Current Possibilities” track and look at ways of enhancing current teaching and learning practices, or take the more prescient perspective for the track on “Future Scenarios”. A total of 146 entries were received in the two categories.

"The Adventures of Hopi and his Grandpa" is a game developed by White Sands Primary School to promote care for the elderly.

One project that distinguished itself was the computer game “The Adventures of Hopi and his Grandpa”, by White Sands Primary School. Hopi is a young squirrel who lives with his grandfather. In the three stages of the game, players must answer a quiz on caring for the aged, navigate a route through the rain to bring grandpa to the clinic, and tidy up a house.

“In our CCA, we usually make games or animations, so we thought we’d make a game”, explained L’kesh Nair. The game, which was featured in the “Current Possibilities” track for primary schools, was produced in about five weeks, during which time team mate Chang Wei Ler honed his skills in Adobe Flash while Madhu Saadhikaa observed that the team learnt how to work together amicably. “Before, we would be quarrelling,” she said, “But for this competition, we knew we had to work together. We did have disagreements, but we didn’t quarrel.”

YouTube video: The students talk about their projects .

Among the entries from the Secondary School/Junior College category, one of the projects that stood out was Dunman High School’s CatAn Lab, an android phone application that helps students in the study of qualitative analysis.

“We took one of the most tedious topics in chemistry and developed on it,” said Ng Yi Yan, 15. “Usually, when you learn qualitative analysis, the teacher gives you a table, which you are just supposed to memorise. This project simulates real experiments.”

Students form Dunman High School demonstrate CatAn Lab, an android phone application that helps students in the study of qualitative analysis.

The youngsters saw the popularity of iPhones and Android phones, and decided to make a mobile app which would be more widely accepted and accessible by their peers. CatAn Lab (named from Cations and Anions) allows users to watch videos of chemistry experiments, so they can actually see the colours of chemicals and precipitates as they are mixed. Of course the tedious tables are there, “but ours are more colourful and visually appealing”, said Yi Yan.

The team took about 100 hours to create CatAn Lab, and was unfazed by the fact that two of its members had not started studying qualitative analysis themselves. Kou Yong Kong and Isaac Ong were confident that with this exposure, “when we do the topic, it should be easy”.

In the “Future Scenarios” track, a team from Mayflower Primary School was lauded for its video on “The Eye”, which features a pair of spectacles with a built-in screen and allows different gadgets to be plugged in. The idea is to enable the pupils to run e-books and to record and download lectures via Wi-fi.

Youth Infocomm Day also saw the appointment of 22 students as Youth Infocomm Ambassadors to help promote ICT. Among them was Archit Jund, 18, who is President of the National Junior College Infocomm Club. “Not everyone is familiar with computers, so I like to help, but there is only so much you can do by yourself,” Archit said. “With a whole group of ambassadors, we can share our knowledge. It provides us with a better platform.”