Preliminary Idea (PI) being rejected? Here's how to solve the problem!

Hi guys, particularly current J1s!!! The PW cycle has just started for you guys and I know that some of you guys must be frustrated over your PI being rejected of ideas. IF you have the following thoughts now:

"How to do PW PI?"
"PI rejected again!(sigh)"
"I want to give up on PI...",
then this blogpost is just for you!

 For all of my GPF documents (PI, EOM and I&R), I had received great feedback from both my teachers last year. So I would like to share how to make sure that your PI submits innovative ideas in the next draft, and hopefully before the deadline!

  Technically the PI is the easiest document that you will be submitting in PW, as there is no source of restriction whatsoever! You can write about any possible topics, education, human rights, health, transportation, any possible thing you can think of. This is unlike other things like Evaluation of Material (EoM) (your second piece of GPF) where you need to be restricted to the WR topic.

  So, the main focus of PI is:
1. A good Case Study for inspiration
2. A good Idea to solve the problem

1.Case Study
  The Case Study requires you to give a short outline of the event that gives your inspiration for the project. Due to the word limit, keep the Case Study to these pointers:
1. Background Information of Case Study
2. Impacts
3. 2-3 Key Features and Evaluation for Application into your GI

  DO NOTE: Case Study need not be a success. You can use one that has a failure (and it is easier to find fault in a failed attempt) that you can mention that must be paid attention to when crafting your GI.

2. Application Area
  With references to your Case Study, give an idea to resolve a particular problem in a particular society.
The idea must be INSIGHTFUL and/or INNOVATIVE. The definition of these two terms differs from teacher to teacher. Therefore, you must find out from your PW tutor of their stand of these two terms, as they WILL be the ones marking the GPF (PI, EoM, I&R).
Generally, the criterion is as follow:
INSIGHTFUL: An idea that shows an alternative perception towards the problem faced OR idea is specially catered to people of that particular society.
INNOVATIVE: An idea that has never been seen before OR implemented before.

To aid in the crafting of GI, check if your GI meets these criteria to be INSIGHTFUL AND INNOVATIVE:
1. Has your GI been implemented before in other societies?
2. Given the situation of society based on the problem, can your idea still be implemented? (Feasibility)
3. In the environment that the idea is been implemented in, are there enough equipment and personnel available to ensure that the events go smoothly? (Manageability)
4. Does the idea match the current trend (e.g. habits and living hood) of the society? (Insightful)
5. Does the idea show your knowledge of the society and information that is striking and commonly not emphasised in the society? (Insightful)

  If your idea passes in all these questions, then you have an Exceeding Expectation (EE) GI!

NOTE: Do remember about the need to evaluate your idea at then end to show it effectiveness. Use factors such as feasibility and manageability to boost the A&E marks to EE!)

Extra Notes:
  1.You can "work backwards". You can come out with a smashing GI first and then use the topic discussed in the Application Area to find a suitable Case Study.
  2. If you need any more help regarding PI, or just need more information on how to score for PW, just contact me. I can also help to look through your PI to see where it stands (as I have done PW before). The conversations are private and none of your PW material will be leaked out to others, as asked by some people who contacted me!

  All the best for PW and may the games begin!

SSEF 2017: Message to authorities

Hi, I participated in SSEF 2017 with my project. However, I would like to share some observations that I had made that could suggest that the competition may have an error in the results.

  I have participated in several competitions with my project on Chemistry (Actual Code will not be revealed to maintain confidentiality. In all of these competitions, I have won the top awards. However, for SSEF, I had not even been awarded a single award.

  Later on in the Final Judging Round of SSEF, I have been judged by five judges with most of them reverting positive responses to me, just like the previous competitions. When I asked if they could provide any room for improvement to my poster or project, they said that they all could not provide any room for improvement as the entire project and analysis was already very impressive and 'exceeded their expectation of the capability of a JC student'. When the Prize Ceremony came for SSEF 2017, this project that had performed extremely well for other big national competitions could not even place and win any awards in Singapore. This made me unable to qualify for A* Talent Search, which was my sole goal for SSEF since a person must win an award in SSEF before being eligible for A* Talent Search.

  Also, judging from the results from the final judging round on the Science Centre Website, it suggested a great error in results. Chemistry, which previously was a category that many won Gold in, had only one Gold Awardee:

This is in great contrast from previous years, which had a majority of Chemistry entries out of all of the Gold Recipients, like in 2016 or 2015:

Why is there such a big contrast? I have recently called up relevant authorities regarding this issue and they basically told me that these results were based on the judges' comments and scores. But they do not equate to having such a big difference between 2016 results and 2017 results! I understand the huge competition in SSEF, but the big difference would not have happened in such a short period of time. For example, there were plenty of Chemistry project that was interesting and explained extremely well by the students, just as well or even better than those that were awarded Gold in other categories. Two examples that I could immediately think of was one on the usage of composite gels and one that uses fish gelatin to replace pork gelatin. Both are extremely significant and explained well with clear posters but yet both had failed to earn any awards. This just shows how confusing this year's results were for just the Chemistry category. The results are suggesting that this year's Chemistry students were worse off as compared to other categories, which is definitely not the case.

What's more, all of the Gold Recipients were all from the better JCs in Singapore. None were from the other JCs. In the past few years, there were still some from TJC, AJC, CJC, etc., but for this year, there was none. This may actually give people a perception of a fixed competition, though I am sure that the authorities would never allow this to happen.

I would strongly suggest the relevant authorities review this year's results and revert back to all participants of the large differences in this year's results because there is definitely an error in the results.