Post-event: Aerofair 2014
September 29, 2014
Finally, the day for Aerofair 2014 has come to an end. On last Saturday, September 27th, we had almost a full turnout of participants (teachers and students) from 56 teams from 21 secondary schools in Penang. There were a total of 223 students (Forms 1 to 5) and 34 teachers who participated. Overall, the event went really well with good weather almost throughout the entire program, except for the heavy downpour of rain towards the end of the event in the afternoon sessions. To top up the excitement, many participants have voiced out their hopes to see Aerofair be organized again in 2015 in USM!
This event couldn't have been done splendidly without three factors.
First, we want to express our sincere gratitude for the strong support we have received from the Penang Education Council of the Penang Institute for their funding, from Jabatan Pendidikan Negeri (JPN) Pulau Pinang for their help in promoting the event to secondary schools, and from the USM School of Aerospace Engineering and the USM School of Mechanical Engineering for their continuous administrative and technical support to organize the event. We are also honored to have representatives from these bodies came to our program to officiate the event and to visit various school booths in the 3 competitions we held.
Second, the event wouldn't have been possible without the organizing team as well as the student volunteers from the Aero school. The organizing team consisted of about 40 members from the academic, administrative, and technical staff from both the Aero and Mechanical schools, and also about 40 student volunteers from the Aero school. Thanks very much to every single one of you, staffs and students alike, who have contributed ideas, time, and energy into this program. I'm sure all of us can be proud that we were in a team that acknowledged and appreciated contributions from every single member regardless of who they are. It gave us the feeling of wanting to do more than what was asked. Thanks very much again to all of you!
Third, what is an event without the participants, and what a turnout it was! When we first approached JPN to invite schools to participate, we were informed that we might get a low turnout of participants because the event date was very close to the final exam season. It was definitely a surprise to us that we managed to get close to our original target of 300 participants. We are delighted to take this opportunity to give our biggest thanks to all the students and the teachers who have allocated parts of their precious time to build flying and airframe models to compete in our event.
As promised, we are preparing an "Aerofair 2014 Bulletin" to communicate the outcomes of this event to relevant bodies and the larger public. We will share a free copy of the Bulletin in this blog in the hope that it can enthuse others with what we have done here and build a momentum towards future Aerofair events. We are also planning to start an effort to promote aerospace activities in Aerofair and replicate their positive impacts at a larger scale. One way this can be done is by forming Aerospace Clubs at secondary schools to promote these activities in students' co-curricular sessions. Here, the School of Aerospace Engineering can act as an adviser to this network of Aerospace Clubs, and this blog can serve as a portal to share their achievements. More planning on this will come later to formalize the effort with relevant bodies. For the time being, any secondary schools who are interested can start plan to initiate their own Aerospace Clubs based on the activities in the 3 competitions we have at Aerofair.
In the coming days, we will be posting a few articles in this blog to cover the event activities and outcomes, including some photos. There will be updates on the 3 competitions we run - the Indoor Flight, the Airframe Modeling, and the Water Rocket - including sharing the event photos and introducing the winners in each category. So please stay tuned to this blog...
Bottom photo: A group photo of the Aerofair committee and student volunteers after the event. Read more...
