Our team members are from Victoria Junior College, Singapore. We are a team of four with diverse strengths, each of which was tapped in the creation of this site. Thus, the diverse talents in the team complemented one another admirably well. Although we belong to the same college, we all came from vastly different backgrounds.

Coincidentally, we became a multi-racial team, as we had members from all the primary ethnics groups in Singapore: Chinese, Malay and Indian. It was enthralling working with people from other races and religions, and knowing more about them. Secondly, each individual in the team differed greatly in his area of expertise. Hence, we ensured that we complimented each other well.

Working together

Although we all belong to the same college, we still found it quite challenging to colloborate and come up with this site.

Due to overlap of timetables, we seldom did anything during school hours. Our favourite form of communication was through the Internet, making use of the conference facility. In that way, we kept each other informed of the progress made. We set up an online forum and created multiple topic threads to keep track of our work. We also regularly sent email messages to one another.

Site planning

Even before we started serious work on the website, we planned out what we wanted to do. Firstly, we decided on what our motive in doing the website was. After that, we allocated the work according to the strengths and weaknesses of every individual. A huge mindmap was drawn up to summarise the content of our website (see the small screen shot to your right). The topic of "Cybercrime" was split into smaller sub-sections. Each individual was assigned a specific amount of content writing to do. Each member was given a color code, and his section of the work was shaded in the mindmap.

In addition, we also brainstormed on what we wished our website to look like. Kishore was given the task of creating a preliminary version of the website layout and design. The design was then improved upon by the ideas contributed by the other team members and the coaches.

The actual building process

Once we had meticulously planned out what we wanted to do, we proceeded onto the actual production of the work. While creating the content, we reached a common consensus that we will try to refer to a wide variety of sources. Apart from books and websites, we also were fortunate to have the expertise of our coaches, who pointed out the mistakes and glitches in our work. We were careful in recording down our information sources. We put our sources of information under each page in a section called, 'Reference'. We believe that no book can be complete by itself. We hence hoped that our website visiors use the Reference section to further their learning.

Concurrently, Kishore (web design) and Shafeeq (scripting) collaborated to produce the final version of the website layout design. They tried to make the website look appealing and organised. Kishore also generated images and graphical elements to embed between text. Ushnish collaborated with Amos to translate the English content to French. While Amos was the one who did actual translation, Ushnish oversaw the convertion of the English site to French. Once the English content was tranlsated into French, it was sent to Kishore to be put into the website.

We tried to stick to the deadlines we had set ourselves earlier during planning to meet the deadline comfortably without last minute rush.

Kishore, Web Designer and Team Leader

"I was primarily in-charge of the layout and graphical aspects of the site. Although, I was quite new to website designing, I learnt the essential tools and skills to design the site. It was not an easy job as I ran into many technical problems, due to cross-browser compatibility. I used Cascading Stylesheet (CSS) extensively to improve the efficiency and the perfomance of the website. Another challenge I faced was when I attempted to generate the graphic elements for the website. Since the topic of Cybercrime was such an abstract concept, I had to think really hard to generate graphics that enabled the website visitor to better grasp the content.

This competition has turned out to be a steep learning curve to me. I enjoyed working with this team as my team members have been truly devoted in doing this project."

Ushnish, Content In-Charge

"From the day Kishore suggested doing a website on cybercrime and educating the public about them, I was hooked. This was a topic with sufficient available background information to make a substantial site but with enough controversy and knowledge gaps for us to provide our own opinions and perspectives. As I was in-charge of the content, I learnt a lot about what makes the criminal mind tick and how similar, contrary to popular belief, the cybercriminal is to the real-world criminal. I did a lot of reading up on cybercrime and to understand the thought process behind crimes in general as well as how they tie up with technological advancements.

Regardless of what Kishore or Shafeeq, the two technical people, may say, technology is useless in the fight against cybercrime unless you know who is the perpetrator, what he wants and why he wants it. That is why I focused on digging up information on the predator, his prey and the protectors."

Shafeeq, Scripting and Technical Content Writing

"My job as a programmer is not without its difficulties. Although some of the stuff I did may look simple to the layman, the coding that goes behind it is far beyond simple. Being a human, I do make mistakes and sometimes these mistakes are very difficult to spot. I cannot possibly submit a program that is partially done or is not working properly as it does not portray a good image. As I am also quite meticulous I tend to spend more time on making sure that the stuff I produce looks good and will attract people to use it. This requires a lot of energy and effort. My job was more of providing the technical expertise on the site as my skills center around programming be it application or scriptwise. I was also responsible for creating the technical content as my speciality lies there.

ThinkQuest to me seemed like a very big and prestigious project. It seemed very intriguing and exciting too. I have been on ThinkQuest in the past few years and never had it seemed as big and important as it did this year. This was probably due to the enthusiasm of my other teammates who were really keen on this project. As such, it did feel stressful at times, mostly due to my own inability to keep up with their vigour but after everything is done and finished, I do feel a sense of satisfaction. I feel that I've learnt quite a lot of lessons. For one, I learnt that deadlines must be strictly adhered to or the whole team suffers. I have also learnt what it is like to be working in the professional world. "

Amos, French translation

"Being called upon to translate texts from English to French was no easy feat as it required a tremendous amount of determination, effort and patience. The aesthetic element of the English texts had to be preserved by finding the accurate equivalent of the specific word and sentence structure in French. After the translation process, these texts had to be thoroughly reviewed and edited with the intention of giving them a cohesive and logical structure, which the direct translation could have inadvertently overlooked. It is indeed satisfying to have completed a huge task like this. The proficiency of my French and English have indeed improved. In addition, the acquiring of important knowledge in this field of cybercrime is truly invaluable. I thank my team-mates for such a wonderful working experience and congratulate them on a job well done."

Gi Soong Chee, secondary coach

"The team members were motivated and willing to work hard. Full of ideas, thinking and always striving for perfection. Their optimistic attitude will bring them far in life. It has certainly been most enjoyable working with this bunch of energetic young people."

Amit Das, primary coach

"This was an easy project to be part of - everyone else did their work, and I had very little to do! It fits well with my broader interest in computer security, and I learnt a lot from the extensive research that served as a foundation for the web site. I have a high regard for the team members: their dedication and willingness to work to a deadline are impressive. I hope you, the reader, find the site useful and usable; that would be our greatest reward."