The 2004 Gigahertz Competition is an annual competition organised by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Computer Engineering Club (CEC). This year the competition was held on 23-24 July at NTU with the finals on 1 August 2004 at Suntec City Galleria Foyer.

In total, 30 teams; 1 from NTU, 12 from the Polytechnics and 17 from Junior Colleges participated in the competition with each team comprising of three students. With the aim of exposing our students to competitions and gaining IT- related skills, an overwhelming 8 teams from RP participated in the competition. They then started to prepare for the four rounds of the competition.

Prior to the actual competition day, the teams spent many days (and nights!) completing their project for the Technology Round. This round required them to design and develop an application (memory management tool) according to the specifications given, document the features and create a marketing poster and website for their developed application.

On Friday 23 July, very gamely our students arrived at NTU. They were separated into groups to rotate at the three remaining rounds. Some teams started with the Logic and Programming round which they had to solve algorithmic problems while others prepared for the Multimedia Round to demonstrate their Technology application to the judges. The last group started with the highly competitive Quiz Round which they had to complete 300 IT questions of various categories. As the quiz points are updated real-time for the teams to see their rankings, there was intense pressure as the teams strived to be in the top! The rounds continued on Saturday 24 July.

On Sunday 1 August, all the teams gathered again at Suntec City for the final Speed Quiz round and prize presentation ceremony. The Guest of Honour was Minister for Education, Mr Tharman Shamugaratnam. Although none of the RP teams won the first three prizes, our RP students did well, considering that they were competing with top Year 3 students of other Polytechnics and Junior College students! Three RP teams even received special mention as they were in the top 30% in the particular rounds. After waiting patiently (for close to four hours!) to receive their certificates of participation, the teams ended their day with photos with the Minister!

Well Done, SIT students!

Contributed by Choong Siew Ling (SIT)