reflecting...

another RE reflection, this time the official one:

The year has indeed been a fruitful one. However much the pain, the sweat, the blood we lost, it was more than worth it. Our efforts paid off as we eventually came up with substantial results, learning much through the process.

The year started with a low point, with our proposals to the Singapore Mentorship Programme rejected twice. As one of the powerhouses in Science-based projects in secondary 2 last year, we never expected such things to happen to us. We faced adversity at the start of the year, as we struggled to find a project for ourselves. We definitely did not want a school-based one as we had done that last year. We wanted a bigger challenge, something that would bring us far, something that would let us learn much more. We were hungry for more. After much finding and persuasion, we finally got ourselves into the prestigious Youth Research Programme (YRP) at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN). It was like a dream come true. It seemed as though it was God’s will that we had our proposals to SMP rejected so that we could join the YRP instead. No matter the case, we were happy with what we got.

Our first few visits there were astonishing. We visited the laboratories, went around seeing the facilities, peeked here and there, wishing to find out more about the place. We were curious and definitely shocked by the high technology present at IBN. For the first time, distilled water ran like tap water, pipette tips were used as frequently as one would for toothpicks. That was not the main point though. For our first few visits, we did our literature review, in which we learnt much about the kidney which provided much background knowledge for our project. Reflecting back, I finally understand the importance of doing such a thing. It indeed helped us a lot in our future experiments. It not only helped us in designing out experiment, coming up with suitable variables and comparison lines, but also saved us lots of precious time.

The main part of our project finally came – the June attachment. For the first time, we went for work like adults. For the first time, we worked like professional scientists. For the first time, I really experienced what research was really like. The first few days of the June attachment was devoted to learning the instruments and machines in the laboratory and of course lab safety. Lab safety was indeed important as later on during the attachment, there was a toxic gas leak. This showed me that however much Science can help mankind, it could also harm mankind as much and if we do not take safety precautions and procedures, the harm that Science may cause mankind may easily overtake the benefits. Later on, we started to design the experiment. It took us some time to understand the whole procedure of the experiment as it was a very complex experiment. One experiment could easily take up one day. However, we eventually learnt the techniques, and even improved on them over our attachment as we found many flaws within it. It may seem boring on pen and paper – doing experiments continuously. However, it proved interesting to me as I found myself actually enjoying what I was researching on. Although the steps I take everyday were similar, the results that were garnered varied and it always felt like a great achievement when we got fantastic results. I understood that research takes much patience and interest is a key to success. Of course, we gained much scientific knowledge as well. Meddling with high technology machines was but one of the ways for us to see how much Science has developed and how much of Science we did not know of. The methods used in research, like that of getting much relavant knowledge from research papers or even that of finding the many different ways of fabrication of fibers was indeed fascinating. On our part, we contributed much as we put our creativeness to good use as we invented many methods of bundling fibers, gluing fibers and much more. I have to say that one of the most important things in research has got to be creativity too. It is with creativity that research can be done. If not, what is the point of researching on stuff that people have already done? The bravery (which is another quality of a researcher) of trying new things, and the bravery to fail is important for the success of a researcher.

As the project comes to a closure, I must once again emphasize on the large amounts that I have learnt throughout this project. The science of a kidney, the methods of practicing science, the qualities of a researcher, the need to persevere at the face of adversity and much more have been learnt throughout the project. Therefore, even though I have spent much time and effort on this project, especially during the June attachment, I must say that the effort was well spent.