WorldSkills Singapore // Interview with Joell Thng & Martin Lim

Photo of Joell with his half finished work!

Interviewee:	Joell Thng, Year 3 Diploma in Clean Energy Engineering, Singapore Polytechnic.
	Martin Lim, Year 3 Diploma in Clean Energy Engineering, Singapore Polytechnic.

Q: What are your views on the competition?
J: Personally I feel like that standard wasn't what I expected it to be. The sample paper is exactly the same as the actual competition question so it's something everyone can just train for. They were actually allowed to change 30% of the sample paper, which is actually a lot, but they didn't. Even so, there were, of course, a couple of changes and unexpected things which affected the time taken to get everything done.

Q: So how did you think you faired?
J: I was a little too overconfident on the first day, which led to my downfall on the second day. I was initially in the lead but because I thought I had a lot of time, I slowed down and allowed the ITE students to catch up with me.
M: I was also pretty close to Joell, speed wise, on the first day but I slowed down with my wiring and ended up on par with the rest. That was kinda disappointing.

Q: Apart from time, were there any other challenges faced?
J: Actually, the main difficulty would be dimensioning.
M: Cutting to the exact length specified isn't easy. In addition to that, sometimes, after putting it all up on the wall, it doesn't turn out as expected. This will result in wasted time thinking of how to change it.
J: We also have to be really quick on our feet.

Q: How do you think this can be related to daily life?
J: The training itself is already really good for daily life because it teaches us how to analyse problems and solve it. There is a component called troubleshooting which requires us to solve the problem given to us by them. So next time whenever an electrical appliance malfunctions at home, I will be able to analyse the problem and solve it by myself.
M: It's good because I can do everything by myself now! I don't have to call someone else to help me.

Q: Anything else you wanna share about the competition?
J: It was a really good experience.
M: There are many good people here and we made a couple of new friends. We learnt a lot from this too.

Thank you Joell and Martin for your time! :)