yep last day of astrochallenge ytd, last competition ever and quite an interesting closure.
special round was just some very very simple board game with no meaning to it! they tried making up some storyline that was pretty lame >.< but it's essentially just choosing a random number on the board. about 50% chance you'll get a safe spot with no questions, if you're unlucky, you get a question that you must answer correctly. if you answer wrongly, you "die" and are out of the game
every single member of each team must take turns, and i think we were really lucky. ask qw, the really lucky person who didn't get a SINGLE question over the whole game! she just kept getting safe spots, and she insisted on choosing multiples of seven, which she believed would be safe spots. when other ppl chose multiples of seven, they got questions; when it's HER who chose multiples of seven, it's always a safe spot! amazing eh.
the questions were either true or false qns, or multiple choice. some questions are quite simple lah, but some were really dunno how to do! zeggy got the most number of qns, and she's really lucky to have answered all of them correctly, esp the telescope qn! we all didn't know how to do the calculations, so she just ended up going aiya 2.5 lahh! then it was actually
correct! scary.
in the end we survived 6 rounds of the game, with only one person "dying"! while the other two teams died early in the game, with 3 or 4 ppl "dead". they were from njc team 2 and pjc team. blaws got obsessed with the twins from njc team 2 xD haha.
later on it was finals. junior finals - ri team 1, ri team 2, rgs team 1, bp team 1 and bp team 2. how imba is that?? whatever happened to the other poor schools >.<
the first round was individual answering, where there were 4 levels of questions to pick from and every member from each group must take turns to answer one. it's quite scary bcos it was indiv, and the questions were really quite difficult (to me)! at this point me and qw were like, "i don't know whether i want us to get into finals or not. i mean, look at the junior finals questions! we'll just embarrass ourselves if we get into finals >.< but if we don't get into finals, it's quite sad too! sigh howww."
qw ended up being determined that we won't get into finals and attempted (to no avail) to sleep at least a million times. i felt it's possible for us to get into finals, but then again, maybe not. >.< so i just stopped thinking about it and concentrated on the junior finals haha.
2nd round was team answering, it's some (horrid) game called bail or no bail? teams are to write down their answers within the time limit and if you get it correct, you move up the ladder (up to 1 point). if you get the next qn correct, you move up the ladder again (up to 5 points). if you get the 3rd qn correct again, you move up to 10 points. it's exponentially more lah, and you get a choice to bail out your points after every question. if you get any qn wrong, all your points are gone, unless you have bailed them out earlier. so yah...it's actually pretty boring, and it's a terrible system! bcos the questions are so difficult it's really not easy to get the qns correct consecutively! poor rgs couldn't get consecutively correct answers, so they ended up with 0 points ):
i don't think they should have made it turn to 0 when they ans wrongly. they should just make the teams move down one level or something if they answer wrongly! sigh.
ri team 1 was losing in the first round while bp team 2 was winning, then both ri teams caught up to bp in second round. later on, it was 3rd round, buzzer round. the buzzers, as usual, LAG at one side, while the other side works the fastest. so ri team 1 was able to spam buzzers and get it in, while bp team 2 and rgs and bp team 1 all couldn't buzz in. what's more, it wasn't computerized! the guy was just looking at the panel to decide, and imagine if he blinked just a moment and missed the buzzing in?
garh. nus-ntu seriously should have much better organization skills. i think nyp is more organized than this comp lah, they should learn from nyp. hmph.
so in the end, ri team 1 won out the whole round, so ri team 1 won the finals by quite a big margin i think, followed by bp team 2, then ri team 2, bp team 1 and rgs team 1. the finals hosts kept saying raffles team 1 when they referred to ri team 1! i mean, rgs is also raffles team 1?? they should just say ri team 1, rgs team 1 etc -.-"
as for the senior round finals, i must say it was the only time i actually mugged for the finals. bcos we all really mugged hard for this competition, so if any, this is the last chance we could have to get into the finals. i got inspired to mug astro (it's addictive, no idea why!) so yeah. the astro quizzes are quite fun. i think i'll go try somemore later. xD
also, i just rmbed that blaws saw this notation next to our team name in the morning during registration. it was "f. must sit separate". blaws was saying it must be that we got into finals and we must sit separate from rj team 1! then qw was like no lah! must be that we have to sit separately from rj team 1 during special round and not finals. but yah it really sounds like we got into finals xD so i had some hope lah. then again we didn't get to see if the other teams had this notation as well...
so yeah as many ppl had expected, senior round finals - rjc team 1, rjc team 2, acjc team 1, njc team 1 and hcjc team 1. it was really unbelievable we actually got into finals, considering that hcjc team 2 is quite pro too, and nushigh? what's more, we didn't exactly do well in our previous rounds (except special round haha). so yes it was quite nice we got in. then again it was scary too. imagine those terribly hard qns thrown at us this time >.<
first round, we did quite well bcos we got questions we could crap about and smoke our way through. also i think the judges were taking pity on us the only girls team xD rj team 1 kept getting really lousy and suay questions they couldn't really crap about! so they got quite a lot of points deducted. (i don't think they can crap very well anw, esp amyas; he won't crap about things he doesn't know well >.<) ac did quite well with their smoking through too haha.
we got really worried for rj team 1, bcos rj hasn't won astrochallenge before, and this was our last chance for the imba rj team 1 to win it. i know how much this really means to them, that they get first this time. it's their last competition as well. i know sikai wanted our team to get into finals too, but to me, we're there to help rj team 1 win. it's highly unlikely we can actually get past the pro hc team and ac team to become top 3, so we have to do our best to help rj team 1!
so yah 2nd round we got quite a good lead (only team with 5 points!), but later on we decided to bail out the moment we got one point. we believed that the qns would be unbelievably hard bcos the junior round alrd so difficult, not to say senior round? then guess what? suddenly the next few qns got so EASY and we ended up bailing out on 1 point for the rest of the qns (when we could have gotten 20 points for answering 4 consecutive qns correct >.<)
but it's ok, bcos i feel really happy we showed our "prowess" that we're not lousy, and we can get 4 qns consecutively correct too! in that sense, our team actually did the best in that round, except we er decided not to take risks and bailed out every qn. hmm so rj team 1 managed to catch up this round, and ac team 1 also got some points.
last round buzzer round. yes buzzer problem again, but not like we could answer a lot of qns. we buzzed in like two qns, and er obviously the other side's buzzer works. luckily it was rj team 1 who got the good buzzer haha(don't mind the biased pov). just that they kept doing stupid things like buzzing in b4 the light lit up and getting points deducted off their alrd not-so-good score!
it was a really close match between ac and rj, bcos rj, while they answered quite a few correctly, they answered a few wrongly too! and the judges just refused to give them points. at least don't deduct the score lah! SIGH. then ac kept smoking through their qns and stuff, but they still got some wrong qns.
hc apparently knew most of the ans and kept buzzing in, but they just couldn't get through. >.< they got to answer a few qns partially correct though so yeah, finals ranking is like ac team 1, rj team 1, hc team 1, us and njc.
garh. stupid buzzers. and the finals hosts kept referring to us as raffles girls team!!! we're like "it's raffles junior college team 2". then the guy went they're the raffles guys team, then you're the raffles girls team lah! T.T why can't they just say rj team 1, rj team 2. bleh.
results!
newcomer project winner - rgs newcomer team 2!
newcomer round 3rd - tanjong katong girls' school (i think)!
newcomer round 2nd - acsi team 1!
newcomer round champions - rgs newcomer team 1!
best newcomer astronomer - samantha from rgs newcomer team 1!
junior project winner - ri team 1!
junior round 3rd - ri team 2!
junior round 2nd - bp team 2!
junior round champions - ri team 1!!!
best junior astronomer - weili from bp team 1!
senior project winner - acjc team 1!
senior round 3rd - hcjc team 1!
senior round 2nd - acjc team 1!
senior round champions - rjc team 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
best senior astronomer - cx from rj team 1!!!
amazing raffles takeaway! rgs, ri AND rjc all champions of each round!
rj team 1 was obviously ecstatically happy, as they nv expected that the top astronomer would come from their team; they had thought they could have no hope of getting first le.
it must have been sad for acjc team though, it's their last comp as well, and it was really, really close. at most a few marks difference? bp as well, the buzzers just didn't work out for them >.< this year, for once, i didn't see them in blazers and leather shoes. i wonder if anyone else noticed xD they finally decided to abandon the tradition?
congratulations rj team 1! we finally got what we wanted! oh yeah and the prize was a 6 inch newtonian telescope! finally can have proo telescope for observations ^^
rj team 2, u all ROCK. it's been the best finals we've done so far, we put up as good a fight as we could. BIG HUG! -HUGS- ^^
all in all, i feel everyone is a winner in this competition. all of us mugged hard, and fought hard and well. we all deserve a pat on our backs! -patpat- this marks the closure of our competitive participation in astronomy competitions, and i must say, it's not too bad a closure. well done everyone! (:
this picture actually looks pro. qw who decides to tape everything on herself after resisting all our "advances".
qw finally gave up and let us do the taping. still, she's looking like she's getting raped T.T apparently it's only when blaws is taping though! when I tape, it's fine ^^
smiley - two "eyes" and a tick.
look how comfy qw is, sleeping while we slave away T.T
qw attempting to look robotic HAHA. half-done spacesuit.
blawsum the cute! oh sorry it's blaws you piece of flower xD
zeggy on the phone! she looks so happy. wonder who she's talking to...xP
vionna with the helmet. of course with our signature pink ribbon on ^^ she looks so cute! like a furry mouse!
qw in her spacesuit!
love makes the world go round!
rj team 2 <333
panz trying on our helmet. unfortunately, he deliberately took the pink ribbon out T.T still he looks scary with his hands "missing"
domo-kun RARRR. so cute right!
sikai-kun and domo-kun RARRR. ^^
amyas with his godly pleasures. (doing mastermind on gc haha)
cx the sugar addict popping a whole packet of sugar at one go! T.T he's pro la him. he was super delighted when we got him sugar haha.
rj team 1.
the meaning of STONE.
how we passed our time. look at the rubik's cubes, books, gcs and randomness.
mugging for obs.
cjc team
mingyang in his 
the bandit lookalike! he looks like a gentlemanly bandit xD, if there's actually such a thing. who knows what sch that is!
cute blob of roundness on his head! pjc's spacesuit.
our juniors ^^ stacey looks so 
blaws qw and juniors!
stacey! we love you kayyy! (:
headless mummy alert! now this is scary.
8-star raffles suite + 电灯泡 + l'espoire haha. poor sikai and qw suffers in their horrid suits. so kudos to them for the job well done!
rj teams yay!
