EMRazing Challenge 2012 was held on the 4th of April. It is a team bonding event organized by two representatives from Team 3, Sha and Edison. The objectives of this event are to encourage team building, and to simply have fun by utilising the technology made available to us. We also hope to instil a sense of drive when it comes to their projects, through getting each to know each other better.
We have utilised the EMRS project room to organize the first half of the programme. All four teams had to participate in three different games: Don’t Forget Your Lyrics, Are You Smarter Than a Sec 5 Graduate, and Draw Something.
The games started off with Team 3 taking the first turn in playing ‘Don’t Forget Your Lyrics’. The game was separated into 8 different genres ranging from 90s, Indie, Pop, Ballads, Alternative, R&B, Jazz, and Movie Soundtracks. Each team was given two genres to choose from, and only one song out of the two songs in each genre. Team 3 started off with Movie Soundtracks, and picked the song “I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” from the movie Armageddon.
After singing a verse in the song, the team then had to guess the missing lyrics towards the end of the verse. Answering this correctly would earn the team 50 points. Getting any part of the lyrics wrong, would take away 25 points from them. The song would then be opened to the floor, for the other teams to solve. Team 3 managed to guess the “missing lyrics” at the end of “I don’t wanna miss a thing,” earning them 50 points. The game then proceeded in a round robin manner.
At the end of the eight rounds, Team 4 emerged as the winner, earning the most points out of the four teams. The game was then taken over by Edison, moving on to the round of the programme, namely, “Are You Smarter Than a Sec 5 Graduate”
This round is based on the TV game show, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader,” where participants are to answer questions to gain a certain number of points. Each team was offered different categories to choose from such as Singapore, Geography, History, Chemistry and other secondary school subjects.
All the teams were given two categories each, and just like “Don’t Forget Your Lyrics”, winning a turn will earn a team 50 points, and losing a turn will cost them 25 points. Due to the complexity of some questions, Edison had to give a few hints to the floor for the questions to be answered.
This leg of the game went pretty smoothly, with some teams having answered some questions wrong, and most of them getting the questions right. Little do the teams know, the points that they receive will affect the overall game at the end of the day. After 8 rounds of gameplay, Team 4 emerged once again as the winner, taking a lead in the overall EMRazing challenge. The game then proceeded to the last game held in the project room: Draw Something.
Based on the popular iPhone game, “Draw Something” prompts teams to work together and guess what a representative of each team is drawing. The game begins where the representatives from each team come to the whiteboard at the same time. A specific space on the whiteboard would be allocated for each member where they can draw on it. For eight rounds of game play, teams were given only 30 seconds to draw and guess the drawing. The first team to guess the drawing will be given points accordingly. This game came close to a tie, with Team 4 and Team 3 leading the game.
Following this, the games in the EMRS project room are officially over. Team 4 takes the lead with the highest score for the current games. The teams are then given some time to change into the sports attire, and proceed to the Sports Hall at Block F for the final game.
EMRazing got interesting and a buzz of excitement filled the Sports Hall. This was the highlight of the entire event: Captain’s Ball. There were 6 (or more) players in each team. Each team is to select 1 person to be the ‘Captain’ or 'goal catcher' to stand on a chair at the end each play area. The remaining team members will be taking up any position outside of the circle markings around the Captain from the opponent team.
The games went on pretty smoothly with a few small blunders along the way. However, we managed to pull through as two rounds of Captain’s Ball went on simultaneously, and all the teams managed to compete against each other.
After a gruelling and intense 4 rounds of Captain’s Ball, Team 3 emerged as the winner! The teams then proceeded back to the project room for the prize giving presentation.
Even though Team 3 won the Captain’s Ball game, they did not manage to win the overall competition for EMRazing challenge. Team 3 lost to Team 4 by a very small margin due to some points lost in the earlier rounds in the project room. As such, Team 4 emerged as the overall winner!
Overall, the event went very smoothly with only some hiccups hitherto, and we believe the students of EMRS had a lot of fun. Having a half-day team bonding activity not only allows everyone to get to know each other better through fun and games, it also allows all to let their hair down and enjoy themselves. “Work hard, play hard” encourages the students to let loose, and forget about the project submissions for a few hours before working hard again.
