Our Site

VJC02
Site ID: 03oct/01858
Colin, Victor, Shafeeq, Kishore, Junrong, Wee Suan
Topic: Space Travel
19 and Under
Coach: Soong Chee Gi

Why Did We Chose This Topic?

Recently, there seem to be an increase in the news related to Mars ever since the rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity" landed on Mars on 3 January 2004 and 24 January 2004. After "Spirit" landed, President Bush revived plans for manned missions. This annoucement shocked our team and made us ponder whether we would be able to land on Mars in our lifetime. Therefore one of the objective of the site would be to gauge the advancement in the exploration of Mars in the future. This site is like a time capsule to see how much has the world changed.

In fact, much discussion and debate had been gone through before we finally chose this topic. we had trouble deciding on the category as each of us had different opinion on the categories. We even consulted our coach, Mr. Gi for suggestions for the topic for us to work on. In the end, we managed to select a few topics and voted democratically.

We were glad that we participated in this competition because it taught us hard work, dedication, and commitment to the project. Furthermore, it teaches us co-operation, responsibility and teamwork, and without it we would not have completed the project.

This website, Quest to Planet Mars, has helped us gained valuable knowledge about Mars, and many new interesting facts that we do not learn in school. Indeed, it has been a rewarding experience.

Our Team

Our team consist of 6 students, aged 16-17. They are Colin, Junrong, Victor, Shafeeq, Kishore and Wee Suan. The coach to our team is Mr. Gi.

How we met

Although we are in the same college (Victoria Junior College in Singapore), each member of the team is from a different class and it was indeed amazing how we met. We met when Colin heard about the ThinkQuest competition and was looking around seeking for people to join him to form a team to participate in the competition. Somehow the rest of the team heard about his cries for teammate and decided to join the competition to gain some experience. That's how our team was formed.

How often, when and where the team met with one another.

Each member of the team has packed timetables and it would be close to impossible for us to meet physically, though there are weekly instances during which we managed to meet face-to-face at the computer laboratory in our college during our Co-Curricular Activities period. We exchange emails regularly to keep each other updated of our work progress. Also, we chat frequently on MSN Messenger to discuss our project. All these are made possible by the computers we have in our house, so that we can meet online, instead of face-to-face, which is difficult as we have different schedules. We try to dedicate our Friday nights for weekly online meetings during which we update each member in the team of each other's progress.

Roles each member played

Colin
The planning of the project and the delegation of jobs was mainly done by Colin. Colin also worked on the layout and design of the site, using a "spaceship" feel and look to make it suitable to the theme of the website. He also wrote the article of the Singapore's Perspective of Mars.

Victor
Victor researched on the 'Man on Mars' section. He helped to compile the works by everyone into the templates that Colin created. Victor coded the script for the "Did you know" section on the home page.

Junrong
Junrong researched about the History on Mars, as he is a History student. He researched on the past and current missions to Mars. He is also main editor for the website due to his good English.

Wee Suan
Wee Suan researched on the possible colonization of Mars. He also helped to edit the images and photographs because he more proficient in Adobe Photoshop. He created the "Did you know" section on the home page.

Shafeeq
Shafeeq researched on the General Information about Mars. He also worked on the quiz using JavaScript.

Kishore
Kishore researched about the Geological History o f Mars, and also on the present missions to Mars. He is also the editor for the website due to his good command of language. The flash was done by Kishore as he is more proficient with Macromedia Flash than the rest of the members in the team.

Our Coach: Mr. Gi
We consulted Mr. Gi whenever we have questions and issues that we do not know how to solve. As always he has suggestions and ways to help us resolve our problems and difficulties. He also gave some pointers about how to improve our website in general for content, design and interactivity. Mr. Gi provided us with the moral support which helped us to complete this project. Without him, it is hard to imagine how we would have survive through this project amidst our busy school lives with the piling amounts of homework.