WorldSkills Singapore 2012: The Heat is On!

By Ho Khin Wai, Year 2, Diploma in Banking & Financial Services

It is DAY TWO of the WorldSkills Singapore 2012 and I am here at ITE College West reporting to you about all that is happening today for the competition!

But first of all, let us find out how NYP fared in Day One…

Top 3 Competitors for Day 1 - IT Network Systems Administration

Top 4 Competitors for Day 1 – IT Software Solutions for Businesses

Day 2 was filled with much excitement and anticipation as competitors from each trade were given new tasks to work on. Today, I went around the competition venues to bring you the juiciest updates on the competitors.


Speaking about JUICY, let us take a sneak peek into the “Cooking” trade to see what the competitors have whipped up for the judges. 

Future chefs cooking up a storm!

After salivating (too much) over those delicious plates of steak, I left the competition arena in search of more exciting skills to cover.

At the main competition arena, competitors had already started on their individual tasks and had no time to lose. It was also heartening to see that our NYP competitors were all extremely focused on completing their tasks.

Mohammad Ariff and Ma Wai Cheung from NYP testing out the robot controls in the Mobile Robotics competition area

Jashen Low and Leroy Tang with their robot on the battlefield! The team had to engineer the robot so that it is able to pick up the respective coloured cans and deposit them at the other side with the corresponding colour.

According to one of the coaches for Mobile Robotics, the competitors had different strengths and were from various diplomas.  They needed to tap on these strengths so they can overcome new challenges in the competition.  Indeed, teamwork was very important to succeed.

Here’s Joey Ng representing NYP in Graphic Design Technology. Looking good!

At the Graphics Design Technology trade, I got the chance to speak with one of the Experts, Ms Amy Soon, who told me that the NYP competitors are from the School of Interactive and Digital Media (SIDM).  Much time and dedication were needed to train the students to be of competition standards. “Their fighting spirit is very high; they already know what they want in this competition and want to prove themselves to be the best”, said Ms Soon.

Two of NYP’s students – Yik Loong (left) and Kah Yooi busy with building a cabling network in “Information Network Cabling” competition area.

NYP students Zoe and Nadiah working on their display sets!

For second year Visual Communications student Zoe Lim, joining the WorldSkills Singapore 2012 was a great learning journey for her. Said Zoe, “I’ve learnt better time management from this whole experience as I really had to work within a tight schedule to finish my designs.”

Jason Soh and Elgin Lee (not pictured) from NYP

As I ventured around the competition grounds, I wondered what IT Network Systems Administration trade’s competitors do during the competition and so I asked one of the coaches.  To my surprise, I was told their task was equivalent to creating and managing a whole enterprise website and its internal systems in approximately six hours! During that period, they had to work on things like Information Security, VoIP, wireless networks and tons of codes! Kudos to them that they could manage all the stress and keep focused for hours.

I also found out that the coach for NYP for this competition area is Ms Viridis Liew, one of the ex-competitors (and ex-student of NYP!) of the WorldSkills Competition.  She even went on to the international stage to clinch the most prestigious Albert Vidal award in Helsinki, Finland in 2005!

Said Ms Liew, “Winning the award was never on my mind; I was just focused on doing my best to complete my task and let the results take care of themselves.” When asked about how she thought the students fared this year, she said, “They are good. Each of the competitors has his own different strengths and weaknesses. Right now, what they have to do is to cope well with the pressure and they will need to persevere through the finals. Nothing is impossible.”

Competitors at the “Beauty Therapy” competition area working on these pretty models

That concludes Day Two of WorldSkills Singapore 2012! I would like to wish all NYP competitors all the best in the finals on Day 3. The closing ceremony will be on the 11 July, with the results of the winners revealed. These winners will get to represent Singapore to compete in the international WorldSkills 2013 competition held in Leipzig, Germany! Go, Team NYP!

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	Khin Wai is an NYP Year 2 Banking and Financial Services student from School of Business Management (SBM). He started writing for NYP Portal in 2011 out of interest and was soon "addicted" to it. He has also written book reviews for Straits Times YA Classified. Besides writing, he loves singing and has performed for various events in NYP under NYP Soundcard.