If you haven’t read the previous round-up of this contest, you might want to begin there as we list the best entries in this contest.
But there can only be one winner. Without further ado, let’s get the show on the road.
We decided to give away two other consolation prizes besides the grand prize winner of the Lenovo u300s IdeaPad Ultrabook, one for effort and the other for being voted on by the community. As mentioned earlier, the decision was difficult as the quality of the entries were so good.
Each of the two runner-ups will receive a Microsoft Arc mouse (kindly sponsored by Microsoft) that is worth US$49.95 (S$63).
And here are the runner-ups.
Summon Auntie, Save Me by Alvin Woo
Being a driver, it always feels like a waste to display car park coupons when I am just parking for a short while. What’s the chance the car park warden, aka Summon Auntie, will catch me when there are so many cars for her to check, right?
This proved to be a bad decision, especially in the first half of last year, because I got 3 summons for all 3 times I parked without displaying my coupon. As a student not yet earning my keep, it was a pain having to fork out $70 every time this happened.
All this changed when I read TechGoondu’s review on the “Summon Auntie” app. I found out how drivers all over Singapore alert each other whenever they notice the car park warden, just like in the good ol’ times when drivers would shout “MATA LAI LIAO” whenever they see one on the prowl.
The app quickly became one of my most-used apps and I developed a habit of using it whenever I had to park my car for short periods of time. Having shared my experience with my friends, they all downloaded it and on few occasions we have all managed to escape from the clutches of the Summon Auntie.
We also managed to pull this off successfully in our school, where Campus Security is quick to fine cars not parked appropriately, even for short periods of time.
Alas, it was never going to be easy being a driver in Singapore. I got involved in an accident early one morning in December while rushing down to school for lessons. On the left filter lane at a junction, I began moving off after checking for oncoming traffic, without realising the car ahead had not moved yet. That resulted in me rear-ending the car.
It was my first accident, and with all the new rules in reporting accidents that I had not bothered to read, I was at a loss about what to do. Thankfully, I had only just noted the night before on Twitter that the “Summon Auntie” app was getting an update which allowed drivers to note details of an accident! While speaking to the other driver (who also did not know what to do), I quickly pulled out my phone and began updating “Summon Auntie”.
Within a minute it fully updated and thanks to the app, I managed to take down the relevant particulars and was reminded to take photos of both cars involved in the collision. While I still had to fork out the cost of repairs for both cars, I was saved from fumbling around trying to figure out what to do at the accident scene — all thanks to “Summon Auntie”.
It wasn’t exactly my proudest moment, but I definitely consider it to be my most geek moment of the year. 😎
The Great Geek Standard Obstacle Course by Benjamin Loh
Last October was my 3rd anniversary with my girlfriend.
Instead of our usual celebrations with my presenting of the tried and tested bouquet of roses and Hallmark greeting cards, I thought I should turn the tables around and play hard to get.
So what I did was to design a SOC (Standard Obstacle Course) – geek style for my half-converted girlfriend.
Credits to me, but of course. I had left a series of clues in my house that with the access of my laptop and iPhone would slowly but surely, lead her to finding the eventual clue and then eventually, the present I had for her.
Test 1 – QR Code
Pasted right at my wooden door, this was a dead giveaway. Thankfully, I had educated her about Cold Storage e-shopping facilities via QR code. She swiftly whipped out her iPhone and took a snap shot of it.
Test 2- Morse Code
The QR code sent her a link of a web page with an entirely white background with just a word ‘source’. She had a tough time on this one and on heavy hinting, I told her “hmmm, behind every web page is a document and this document describes how and what this page is about… just like that of a medical record of a patient” so she fiddled and managed to find the option to view the source of the page and I had left chunks of irrelevant HTML coding to confuse her.
But what was indeed distinct was an encrypted Morse code:
“- …. . / -.-. .-.. ..- . / .. … / .. -. / — -.– / .-. — —
— –..– / .. -. / — -.– / -.. .-. .- .– . .-.”
(The clue is in my room, in my drawer)
Though her reaction was, “What the…” she came to realize that this was pushing her to her seams. But her ‘ah-hah’ moment came when she shouted, “MORSE CODE” and then went quite quickly to translate it.
Test 3 – Word Play
We ran over to my room and she saw quite a couple of scrabble pieces all jumbled up together.
TCYIORNADI
Didn’t take her to long to realize the clue lied in the dictionary and she ran furiously towards it and knocked down a couple of my other books….
Only to realize another slip of the paper with the words:
“Throw it off the highest building, and I’ll not break. But put me in the ocean, and I will. What am I?”
(At this point in time, given my half-tech girlfriend, we were already 45 minutes into the hunt and I had actually fallen asleep on my bed)
Test 4 – All in the Tissue Box
So she finally realized the answer to the riddle was a tissue after pondering about it for a good 15 minutes. What made her all the more furious was that my dictionary was actually next to the tissue box, i.e. the answer was staring at her right in front of her eyes!
She dug in my tissue box and finally fished out a thumb drive, which she plugged it in and watched a video of a scene where I sang her a love song at Sentosa in front of all my friends.
It was quite an emotional moment for her considering the fact that I had lost contact with my friend who actually filmed the video and we thought that scene would be gone forever.
After she recollected herself, she finally said, “Ok… so where’s my present?”
I looked at her in her eyes and told her, “right in front of you” and I put on a necklace for her.
One that she had fallen in love with some time ago while we were shopping.
Truth be told, this isn’t exactly the geekiest moment in my entire life but this “geekness” is about telling a story of how we started and we will still continue on, in our own quirky ways and appreciate and accept each other for being so.
It takes no effort to be a geek for me but it does take a lot to translate my “geekness” in a way that my girlfriend loves and appreciates and in doing so, I’ve found the geek in her as well.
Congrats to our two winners who came out with those funny and inspired stories!
But there can only be one grand winner. And we felt that Xiang Xun not only had a great story, but would really put the u300s to good use.
The DIY Solar charger by Yeoh Xiang Xun
From young, I was always fascinated to be a DIY/modder for electronic hardware.
As my father is an engineer, I was heavily influenced to do mod on ANY electronic devices I can get my hands on. As an engineering student now, I still continue my passion for modding and DIY electronics.
In 2011, around July, I got this idea of saving money by charging my mobile devices with solar charger and portable battery.
This idea was driven by the fact that my father had some financial problem and our family’s financial is not in a good shape as a result of it, hence, I decided to do my part to reduce our family electricity bill by reducing the electricity required to charge our mobile devices.
As I am a polytechnic student, I will fully charge my devices as much as possible in my campus, however, the battery of my second hand laptop (my brother finished his diploma and passed it down to me) and mobile devices could not last more than a day…
In addition, I have siblings (4 siblings!) which also contribute to the electricity bills with their devices. So, I did some research online and with the help of a friend who studies in USA (met him in online MMORPG!), I got him to ship to me some high grade solar panels from Amazon cheaply and I began to build my solar charger to be used at home.
I also bought high grade rechargable and high-efficiency battery with the help of my father’s friend (such high grade batteries are available online but are unfortunately not allowed to be shipped to Singapore, so I had to go the long and arduous way to get it locally).
I did a ton of research and LEARN about the whole concept of solar charging and electrotechnology from Wikipedia (I did take electrotechnology as my module too, which helped me substantially…) Finally… I got it to work! I was so happy!
Of course, I owed my success to the help of my family and siblings, especially my brother who assisted me with the soldering and checking of the circuits. It is not easy at all.
Not only did I have to persist till the end (I gave up for a month due to common test), I had to start from scratch to research on how the solar charger work. The toughest part is actually to persuade my father to help me source for the battery… I am thankful of my friend in USA too…
I hope I can win this contest and get the new laptop to replace my 5 years old acer laptop as this is indeed a geek event I can be proud of as I put my knowledge to use in real life.
In fact, I used this example often for my recent interviews as one of the answer for my “achievement”. I learned how to appreciate even more for the inventors and pioneers of technology in the old days. They are truly heroes whom changed not just their own life but our life too…
If you guys are interested, this website revolves heavily around my research then.
A big round of congratulations to all our winners. We’ll be contacting all of you shortly on how to collect your prizes.
Once a gain, a big thank you to all our Techgoondu readers who have participated in our little contest. Have a great week ahead!
