[ KS ] [ Julie ] [ Joris ]

KS

Age: 18 Role: Designer Location: Singapore

Hey, finally this site is up! For the past few months, I've been working on this ThinkQuest website together with my teammates and coaches, trying to bring the best out of the topic that we've chosen: Martial Arts. It is a rather friendly topic to me, since I've been in touch with Judo for 4 years and Taekwondo for 2 years. Maybe it is this sense of belonging and closeness that has kept me at my peak throughout the course of the website creation and designing process.

A bit more about myself. I'm Keng Siang (better known as KS to my team) from Hwa Chong Junior College, Singapore, and I'm really into designing, be it website, graphics or multimedia desiging. Over my 6 years of designing experience, I've always been trying to think of creative and new designs when I embark on new projects. In this website, I've implemented the idea of the "footprint" menu which is located at the bottom of this website. I wanted a new style of menu that differs from the norm, and yet adheres to the topic. The foot was the right choice: it enables users to practice their martial arts skills by "kicking and stomping" onto the buttons (drag the foot and you'll see). I've also included the white lines in the background of the webpages to bring out a special style in this site.

This is the third time that I'm participating in the ThinkQuest Challenge, and I can really feel the spirit and enthusiasm this time. The coaches gave good advice, together with feasible new ideas, on how to tackle certain problems, while my teammates and I sweat it out in front of our computers, mailing each other questions, solutions and comments. This is the kind of spirit that I've been looking for over the past few years, and finally I've experienced it.

I've learnt a lot through the process of creating this website, in terms of learning new facts about martial arts and also in terms of working together as a team. I hope you learn something too after surfing through the website. That is, afterall, the main purpose of this ThinkQuest project. Enjoy!

Julie

Age: 16 Role: Researcher/Content Writer Location: San Diego, CA

Hi! My name is Julie and I am a junior at Mt. Carmel High School. This is my first year participating in the ThinkQuest Internet Challenge, and I can attest that it was a challenge!

I have always been fascinated by the martial arts, but have never been a student. I began this project mainly for this reason. ThinkQuest offers the valuable opportunity to learn through teaching others. As a researcher and content writer for the website, I have spent months looking over material, talking with professionals, and attending lessons…essentially, everything that has reached your fingertips, I myself spent time learning. Coordinating my time zone with Joris' and KS' and changing my phone habits to e-mail and ICQ messaging were not easy. In addition, we all had our busy schedules.

But these "challenges" made the experience all the more worthwhile. I am so grateful to have completed this site, something I never could have imagined last year when I first registered! In the process, I met five very talented people whose help I couldn't have done without. In creating this site, I have learned how to utilize and appreciate my nifty computer. One of my major interests is Journalism, and as a writer for my school and community newspapers, ThinkQuest has certainly given me a bunch of practice writing and researching, no doubt!

Lastly, I have gained valuable discipline to work, especially when enticing things like shopping and sleep summoned me =)

The hundreds of hours my teammates and I have spent have finally come together in this website. It definitely was a worthy endeavor for me and I hope that you enjoy and use it. Thanks for visiting our website!

Joris

Age: 16 Role: Programmer Location: Leiden, Netherlands

I'm 16 years old, I live in the Netherlands with my parents, two little sisters and a guinea pig. I started with computers when I was one and a half years old. Actually, I hit the keyboard of my dad's Macintosh Plus and had lots of fun crashing a helicopter in a computer game.

Today I still hit the keyboard, except this time I'm writing code - mainly PHP, but also Javascript and HTML. I learned programming PHP last year, because I was determined to build database driven websites. Some people think I've become quite experienced in programming; I actually quit my part-time job at the supermarket unpacking boxes to work for an internet agency.

This is my second time participating in the ThinkQuest Internet Challenge. The site I made last year was about robots, quite different from the subject this year.

This year my team and I made a website about Martial Art. We all had our own specialties, I can program in javascript, php and html, Julie is an excellent researcher and writer and KS can make really good site designs. Together we all had the qualities to make a wonderfull, educational website.

I've learnt a lot about martial arts. I didn't know much about martial arts before we started this website. Now I know a lot more about some major martial arts and their benefits. I hope you will learn as much as I did.

I enjoyed working together with Julie and KS. Despite the time difference (Julie -11 hours, Keng Siang +6 hours), we managed to meet each other on the internet via ICQ. We also sent eachother a lot of e-mail; I received over 250 mail messages.

Computers are fun but so is athletics. My specialty is running the 400 meters and javelin. In the future I would like to study at a university, but first I need to finish another two years at school, Da Vinci college in Leiden.