Tech Saturday (Upsized!) in pictures

The Tech Saturday (Upsized!) tech carnival was held over two days at the end of April this year. The free event aims to bring something experiential for everyone in the form of fun such as through tinkering stations, interactive showcases and demonstrations, hands-on technology and workshops.

Tech Saturday (Upsized!) is one of the Info-Communications Media Development Authority of Singapore's (IMDA’s) public outreach and engagement platforms to create awareness on how technology can make a massive and positive impact on the way we live, work and play, and to show the accessibility of technology. Through the showcases of tech and media demos, local companies and talent, the carnival also highlights how the tech and media industries provide viable career choices and how these sectors play a part in contributing to the Singapore’s transformation towards a digital economy.

Guest of honour Associate Professor Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore Minister for Communications and Information graced the event, visiting various booths in the hall and giving away the prizes for the Singapore International 3D Printing 2017 competition. Minister Yaacob noted that Tech Saturday (Upsized!) is all about helping people of all ages to become comfortable with the digital world and participating in the digital revolution, from not getting scammed and experiencing digital government services. “This is what a digital economy is all about,” he said.

Fan Kerong and Chen Jiarui from River Valley High School won in the School Student category for the blue hat, named The Greek Mythology.

Stanley Wong from the Nanyang Technological University won the Tertiary Student category for the Gyr0-Clock.

The Singapore International 3D Printing Competition had the theme of hats and clocks this year. Winner Chen Mingkai of Hwa Chong Institution won in the school student category with Aion, a black clock with orange hands.

The winning clocks in the background, and the hats in the foreground.

Minister Yaacob poses with the ACS team, one of the winners for the First LEGO League (FLL) Jr.

Student winners of the First LEGO League receive a trophy from Minister Yaacob.

Minister Yaacob also gave away yellow LEGO trophies to winners of the First LEGO League (FLL) Junior competition, which launched its inaugural season at Tech Saturday. The event as co-organised by PIXEL Labs and complemented the Code for Fun Enrichment Programme (done jointly by IMDA and MOE) offered to all MOE primary and secondary schools to increase students’ exposure to coding and computational thinking. A total of 150 students aged six to nine took part in the challenge. Another competition for students was the National Coding Championship (NCC), a coding competition done in esports fashion where participants aged 13 to 18 write code to control the artificial intelligence of their troops.

Workshops introducing VR for the silver generation, run by Presence Pictures, were sold out. This was the only programme at the time of the visit which had been fully booked across all sessions.

One of the worksheets used by Presence Pictures. The six pictures form the interior of a cube when viewed with the company's mobile app, getting users familiar with the idea of 360-degree immersive virtual reality that has top, bottom, front, back, left and right faces.

Poster advertising Presence Pictures' VR training programmes for children.

Little Artists for VR by Presence Pictures helps to turn art into a virtual reality (VR) showcase. The classes, targeted at kids, offer an immersive 360 experience of students' art. Workshops for the silver generation (those aged over 50) were sold out at the event. According to a booth representative, students learn the fundamentals of spatial thinking - not just left and right, but also top, bottom, and all angles within a sphere and perspective - and map 2D drawings to 3D virtual reality artworks. Presence Pictures is founded by Edmund Lee and Eunice Lam.

The Nanyang Venture 8, Singapore's first 3D-printed solar electric car.

Nanyang Venture 8 is Singapore’s first 3D-printed solar electric car, which can travel at a top speed of 52kmh. The four-wheel urban concept micro-car is conceptualised, designed and built by a team of 16 undergraduates from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), School of Engineering.

Lai (left) and Reddy (right) peak to Minister Yaacob (centre) about 3D Printed Superhero LightWing.

3D Printed Superhero LightWing is conceptualised, designed and modelled by Pathlight School students using mind-mapping techniques and thumbnail sketches. Lightwing is the patron superhero of Pathlight School and stands by the school values of character, competence, compassion, conviction and contribution. He is a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves. The students also gave him instruments to calm those around him before they can harm others or themselves. The project is led by the school’s Infocomm Club 3D Design Group and is a joint creation by 15 students. Merugu Akash Reddy and Lucas Lai Wei Rong from Pathlight Secondary School represented the team.

Minister Yaacob tries out the Eyes on Habitat Coral Reef VR experience.

Eyes on Habitat Coral Reef  is one of the many presentations powered by the Storyhive application. Providing a multi-user guided VR experience, one can interact with the underwater simulation featuring the coral reefs at Sisters’ Islands Marine Park. This prototype was a collaboration among PIXEL Labs, Hiverlab and DHI Water and Environment. The collaboration demonstrated how local companies can partner each other to enable innovation and growth, opening up new business opportunities in the new frontiers of technology to remain competitive in the new digital economy.

Featuring an upsized Arena, Arena+, the competition area this year provided elevated viewing for the audience. There were two concurrent competition playfields available. In RC Tank Battlefield radio-controlled (RC) tanks engage in an strategic infrared-controlled warfare.

ArmaGallant: Decks of Destiny has a PS4 version.

Minister Yaacob gets a briefing on ArmaGallant: Decks of Destiny and the ArmaGallant Esport Tournament.

Two esports competitions were held at the event, FIFA 17 and ArmaGallant: Decks of Destiny. The ArmaGallant Esport Tournament was held for the first time in 2017. ArmaGallant: Decks of Destiny, a project of IMDA’s Production-Assistance programme, is local game developer Rock Nano Global's flagship product, combining the worlds of deck-building, real-time strategy (RTS) and multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video games. It is the first Singapore-made game to be released in box sets in retail stores in Europe and US. ArmaGallant is also the first PlayStation 4 (PS4) game in Singapore to have a boxed edition.

Minister Yaacob watches the Medarwin Raincheck in action.

Medarwin wants to change the way the elderly and people with physical limitations dry their laundry using free energy outdoors by developing the Raincheck, a safer automated laundry drying system that is pole-less, IoT-enabled, compact when retracted and effortless to use.

Source: IMDA. Minister Yaacob tries controlling a hackaball  with a tablet. The goal was to control the ball so that it would knock over an empty water ball placed at one end of the stage.

The Hackaball challenge uses a free mobile app to control a connected ball. It is designed to teach six- to nine-year-olds the basics of coding.



No, the fruit are not powering this system. The capacitative sensors in each fruit can detect when the fruit has been touched, playing a sound in response. The system shows how such sensors can be used for various applications.

The Chibi Electronics Kit teaches children how electronic circuits work with sticker LEDs and sticky copper tape that can be connected up to a watch-type battery. Pressing on the robot's 'claw' completes the circuit by pressing copper tape onto a break in the existing circuit diagram, and causes an LED in the middle of the heart to light up.

Instructions for creating the electronic robot card and the completed circuit showing the sticker LED at the bottom, the battery on the top right, and a break in the circuit on the left. The inside cover of the card has more copper tape stuck to it such that the circuit will be closed if the robot's claw on the cover of the card is pressed.

Besides Chibi lights, the Tinkercademy booth sold Solarboticsonline store' BeetleBots and Useless Box kits. Tinkercademy has an online store which features educational products that teach coding and tinkering.

Visitors got to test their hand-eye coordination with getting a drone through a simple double-hoop obstacle course.

Minister Yaacob dropped in on another workshop hosted by Tay Ping Hui, this time on story-telling in a convergent world. Story-telling is a key part of creating an interactive experience whether on video or through VR.

Interested?

Tech Saturday (Upsized!) kicked off Smart Nations Innovations Week. The week continues with innovfest unbound on 3 and 4 May

Watch:
Instavideo on playing ArmaGallant
Instavideo on the new one-time password login method for Wireless@SG
Instavideo on the Medarwin Raincheck
Instavideo on the tanks in Arena+
Instavideo on controlling drones

Read the TechTrade Asia blog post about the esports opportunity

Hashtags: #techsaturday, #yaacobibrahim