The Team

Ben

Australia

Age: 18
School: University of Newcastle, Newcastle, NSW
Field of study: Software Engineering
Role: Flash animations

Hi, I’m Ben and I created many of the animations for this wonderful website. I live in Newcastle, Australia, a city that, despite being the largest regional city of our country (its population is approximately 500,000), has retained a very friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Newcastle is an amazing city, with many beaches and a great mix of people, personalities and nationalities. The area where I live is a particularly nice place in my eyes. It is an eight minute drive to the beach and, especially at night, is surrounded by quiet streets and clean air, which has made running at night with my friends one of my favourite pastimes.

Originally a proud student of Newcastle High, where I met first met Ngoc and was introduced to ThinkQuest, I am now studying the Bachelor of Software Engineering degree at the University of Newcastle, Australia. The uni itself is great! Every day walking about the campus I see hundreds of friendly faces from all over the world. Despite the local mosquito population, which seems to be always there to keep you company when not indoors, the uni is a great place, not only to study, but also to relax. Not one, but two great libraries, and a huge range of sport and recreation facilities make Newcastle Uni seem like a miniature city in itself!

ThinkQuest, for me, has been a unique and valuable experience, not only allowing me to further my knowledge and experience with design and programming, but also introducing me to amazing people from around the globe. These special people are Sigit, Ammu, Ngoc, Lan, Jim and someone who lives not far from my home, Carol. In working together, we have developed friendships and an understanding of each other’s rich cultures which will no doubt span further than the end of this competition. Each one of them has contributed a great deal of time to this site and all of them are incredibly intelligent, motivated, creative, skilled, and did I mention friendly? I have the utmost admiration for everyone’s skills and through the respect which was developed for one another, a much more important thing transpired: an indelible friendship with everyone. However, combined, they have formed a team that I will remember for the rest of my life.

At this point I would also like to thank my family for putting up with the weird nocturnal habits that I developed. Your support has been extremely appreciated throughout this venture. Also, it would be remiss of me to not thank Tram who gave her (sometimes) brutally honest opinions regarding my work and designs with the animations. She also has knowledge of the Vietnamese language, her native tongue, which helped me to work the animations into Vietnamese, a language which I intend to learn some day.

This ThinkQuest project has tied in with my interests perfectly. I have been able to not only learn, but also achieve something at the same time. I love learning new skills, and lucky for me, in my field of interest, there is and always will be something new and exciting in which to engage. My mind has been shown a whole new world of opportunities and… well, I guess adventures! Carol loves to travel, and so do I, but not exactly in the same sense as she. Whereas she will jump at the opportunity to visit a place of history, I throw myself frantically (slight exaggeration) into what I see as the future. Likewise, where she would be overjoyed visiting the great wonders of the world, I would just as happy if given the opportunity to experience the beginnings of the world that is tomorrow, through technology and technology development.

From technology, development and design, to research and learning, ThinkQuest has taught me the importance of communication, especially when working in a team. For those who are considering taking part in ThinkQuest, or any other project like it, I cannot stress enough that you must keep communicating with not just those in your team, but also don’t forget about your family and your friends. Above all, enjoy yourselves!

Thank you to those who have visited this site and I hope that the information and experience that you take with you will be of some help to you, whether it is in aiding you to complete an assignment, helping you relax after a long, boring day at school or even giving yourself something to do to kill time. I also hope that you enjoyed yourselves! I know we did! :)

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