Report of the 39th International Physics Olympiad 2008 for MHS magazine

I am proud and grateful to be able to represent Malaysia in the 39th International Physics Olympiad(IPhO) 2008 held in Hanoi, Vietnam from 20th of July 2008 to 29th of the same month.
Of course such a chance to represent the country, we must have gone through vigorous training, so on 18-21 February 2008; 49 Six Formers students in Physics are invited from High Schools all over Malaysia to participate in the 1st Training Camp at UKM. While we are being cramped with 1st year Physics, we are expected to take a selection test at the last day! The Malaysian Institute of Physics decided to allow interested students to stay on in UKM to concentrate in Physics Trainings. I was the only one who took up this offer and I stayed on in UKM from 18th of February to 25th of April to continue my training.
After the 3rd training camp, on 21-25 April 2008, the final 5 were selected and I was one of them. The other 4 are Muhd. Khairul Azri b. Zulkipli from Mara, Selangor, Saw Siong Keat from Chung Ling High School in Penang and from Klang High School, classmates Phan Chow Fu and Kee Wee Siong. We went for two more training camps and then on to Vietnam after arriving at UKM on the 17th July. We flew to there on the 20th and checked into our hotels.
On the 22nd we had our theoretical exam for 5 hours followed by the Experimental Exam on the 24th. On the 28th we attended the Closing Ceremony of the IPhO 2008. Phan Chow Fu was awarded Honourable Mention and I was awarded Silver Medal. Of the 380+ contestants from 82 countries, I had come up no.73 with 27.9 /50 marks. We came back on the 30th of July, staying one more day to enjoy Vietnam.
After reaching the airport, I was interviewed by reporters from sinchew. We took a group photo, including our Professors who trained us very hard. I would like to express gratitude towards Mr. Wee who trained me and recommend me, Mr. Tan, a retired but good Physics Teacher, Professor Roslan who taught me Quantum Mechanics, Dr. Geri, who Lead us in the IPhO Vietnam, Pn. Chin for making the trips from Penang to KL just to teach us some more Physics, and Mr Chia who coordinated with Mr Fadzil, making our trip free for us. I am grateful for being able to make history in Malaysia by scoring the first Silver Medal in IPhO. It’s an improvement from what I got last year of which I, still a student in Malacca High School, got Honourable Mention in IPhO. This is a great experience which I will treasure for life. And I hope the future generations of young Malaysians can keep on improving the Physics Standards of our country.
P/S: This article will most probably come out in the School Magazine in 2009, so practically no one will have known me personally. I am a six former in Malacca High School, Alpha Class for 2006-07, perhaps those from St. Francis Institution might have seen me before, I was in class of 5H 2005.
Written by,
Ng Xin Zhao

Countdown Towards The Start of LHC!

10th of September 2008. The date the first beam of Protons is to be detected at the Large Hadron Collider. The Day Physics will be changed. And that's tomorrow! Let's see what new stuff will the collider discover, what new revolution will this bring about in Physics, and what new technology will emerge......

Cool!

Thanks to Mr. Wee for this link.

List Of Things to do!

Ok, just last night I had finished my draft for paper 1 in Writing and Critical Thinking. Today, I have lots more of homework to finish.

• Physics lab 1142 report.
• Physics tutorial revision
• PC1141 tutorial
• PC1141 lab preparation
• MA1505 tutorial
• MA1505 revision
• SPS bio trip
• SPS paper presentation
• SPS Project
• UIT Project
• UIT topic 3 reading
• UIT MATLAB
• USP paper1 final
• USP readings

Then Adding CCA:

• Physics Riddles making
• Physics Announcement
• MSL typing the chart flow

In addition, I have to do the Study Loan, Find back my student pass.....
P/S oh I found my student pass. Phew!

End of 3rd week in NUS

The 3rd week of studying in NUS has just ended. Tomorrow I'm going back to Malacca. Maybe I'll collect my STPM cert too. It's is nice staying here. I've been managing 6 modules worth of 24 MCs (Modular Credits) this semester. So far, so good. with 3 day of the week empty, I'm free to do my homeworks on those days.

So far, the lest workload is MA1505, the maths with 3 hours of lecture per week(from now on, when I say n number of hours, I mean hours per week) and 1 hour of tutorial. It's only graded by the exams. While the most workload is the UWC2101P, Writing and Critical Thinking with 4 hours of Seminars(14 students interacting with the Prof). Singapore is in the lead of the world in this aspect. So we're writing papers. 3 papers in 1 sem. Papers in fields that no one has done before. And it's all graded. And I'm supposed to upload my draft by tomorrow noon. Coming up next to be troublesome is Physics, PC1141, and PC1142. With 4 hours of lectures each and 3 hours of lab and 1 hour of tutorial arternately, it's becoming a burden having to complete the lab report..... in excel! Just today I have summitted the report for lab 0.

So coming to the next USP (University Scolars Programme) seminar, we have Foundations in Engineering,UIT2204. With an bridge building project and essay in mind, we'll start MATLAB, a computer programme, next week. It's relatively relaxing with 4 hours of seminar. But the most relaxing module has to be SP2170, the SPS (Special Programme in Science) module. It has 2 hours of seminar and 2 hours of IS (Interactive Session). We're supposed to listen to various different fields of Science from different lecturers and then.... our homework has nothing to do with them! We're going to have fun designing and doing our own experiments on any aspect of Science. So if there's anything we want to do since childhood but lacked the oppotunity, here's our chance, with a $100 budget.

So enough about the academic stuffs, the CCAs, I believe is one of the best things in Universities. I'm the Assistant Publication in The Physics Society, Programme Head of a Sports Day Event in MSL, and joining Buddhist Society, wanna join cultural, martial arts, and Maths Society too. But it still does depend on how busy I am and how am I going to manage it.

See ya all in Malacca!

Photos of the International Physics Olympiad 2008

See this link to the photos.

Large Hadron Collider Rap

This rocks!
CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

My Timetable

Student's Time Table For Matric Number U085975U

Student's Time Table								Time	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thur	Fri	Sat	Sun
08:00 08:30		Mod Code PC1141[SL1] Mod Type LECTURE Day Tuesday Frequency Weekly Time: 800:1000 Location LT33			Mod Code PC1141[SL1] Mod Type LECTURE Day Friday Frequency Weekly Time: 800:1000 Location LT33
08:30 09:00
09:00 09:30
09:30 10:00
10:00 10:30	Mod Code MA1505[SL1] Mod Type LECTURE Day Monday Frequency Weekly Time: 1000:1200 Location LT32	Mod Code PC1142[SL1] Mod Type LECTURE Day Tuesday Frequency Weekly Time: 1000:1200 Location LT33		Mod Code MA1505[SL1] Mod Type LECTURE Day Thursday Frequency Weekly Time: 1000:1200 Location LT32	Mod Code PC1142[SL1] Mod Type LECTURE Day Friday Frequency Weekly Time: 1000:1200 Location LT33
10:30 11:00
11:00 11:30
11:30 12:00
12:00 12:30	Mod Code UWC2101P[2] Mod Type SEMINAR-STYLE MODULE CLASS Day Monday Frequency Weekly Time: 1200:1400 Location 3B/TR1			Mod Code UWC2101P[2] Mod Type SEMINAR-STYLE MODULE CLASS Day Thursday Frequency Weekly Time: 1200:1400 Location 3B/TR1	Mod Code MA1505[ST10] Mod Type TUTORIAL Day Friday Frequency Weekly Time: 1200:1300 Location S16-0599
12:30 13:00
13:00 13:30		Mod Code PC1142[T2B] Mod Type TUTORIAL Day Tuesday Frequency Even Weeks Time: 1300:1400 Location S13-0401 Mod Code PC1141[T2A] Mod Type TUTORIAL Day Tuesday Frequency Odd Weeks Time: 1300:1400 Location S13-0401
13:30 14:00
14:00 14:30	Mod Code UIT2204[1] Mod Type SEMINAR-STYLE MODULE CLASS Day Monday Frequency Weekly Time: 1400:1600 Location 3B/SR1	Mod Code PC1142[UA2] Mod Type LABORATORY Day Tuesday Frequency Even Weeks Time: 1400:1700 Location S12/0402 Mod Code PC1141[UA1] Mod Type LABORATORY Day Tuesday Frequency Odd Weeks Time: 1400:1700 Location S12-0402		Mod Code UIT2204[1] Mod Type SEMINAR-STYLE MODULE CLASS Day Thursday Frequency Weekly Time: 1400:1600 Location 3B/SR1
14:30 15:00
15:00 15:30
15:30 16:00
16:00 16:30
16:30 17:00
17:00 17:30
17:30 18:00
18:00 18:30
18:30 19:00
19:00 19:30	Mod Code SP2170[SL1] Mod Type LECTURE Day Monday Frequency Weekly Time: 1900:2100 Location S16-SPS
19:30 20:00
20:00 20:30
20:30 21:00
21:00 21:30
21:30 22:00