Morning
Afternoon
Night life
The 3rd day of the STC, the first complete day in Singapore.
The day started with waking up very early as we had to leave at 8 am to travel to the National University of Singapore (NUS). This meant an outfit change from normal/vacation clothes to neat clothes. It was shown that some people struggled with the heat in these clothes. During the visit we got an intro talk from a very enthusiastic guy named Fun Man, he really honored his name.
Then it was time for lunch. We got to eat at the campus of NUS. Here we could choose between different Asians cuisines.
During the introduction, we got to know the mascotte of the chemical department called mollenium. Afterwards the group was split in two, where one group got a tour in the labs and the other group got to see how they teach with VR and AR technology. Which was of course very cool and the participants were allowed to try it. Some were very enthusiastic, while other were afraid to get nauseous and didn’t want to get anywhere near there. Finally we got a tour from a Bulgarian professor, who coincidentally lived for a few years in Eindhoven. He was very enthusiastic and gave us a tour around the campus and even brought us to the 26th floor, with an amazing view.
After a filled belly, we went to A*Star, an institute on Jurong Island, comparable to Chemelot in the Netherlands. This is the big secretive Island of Singapore, where you are not allowed to make picture and bring a camera. To get in we needed to go to security with metal detectors. Sven forgot to take his camera out of his bag and after some bargaining with the security he was allowed to leave his camera there. Then we arrived at A*Star where we first got an introduction about what the institude does and its visions are.
Following with a presentation of our professor/supervisor Martin for us and the employees about methanation which was an applicable topic for A*Star. Then the group was split into three and parts of the lab were shown, like a machine that sped up the process of finding good catalysts of reactions or bigger scaled reactors to test new processes. After the tour coffee, tea and cakes were served, which brought a lot of happiness to our Sander.
Finally we were ready to get some dinner, but first we had to pick up Sven’s camera. With a happy Sven we travelled to a mall were there was a big food court inside. At 20.00 we had to take the bus to the night Safari. However, some people got lost and after giving our dayguide Erik some stress we luckily were in time for the bus. Erik did an oopsie and bought tickets for a day later but luckily the employees were kind and allowed us to get inside.
The night safari is a big zoo, comparable to Beekse Bergen with a lot of cool animals that are mostly active by night, like hyenas, hippos, rhinos, owls and even dinosaurs, the last one stated by Manon. Here the program ended and everyone could walk around until 10.45, which was the last bus. The last group just arrived before 12 and went to sleep to get ready for the next day.
Written by:
Milva Baar, Luc de Clercq
