STEMposium 2022 was a student-led event that took place in June 2022. How did it come about? Year 13’s Joshua L. tells us more. 
 
STEMposium started off with a small group of students thinking of a way to fulfill one of our CAS requirements, but it evolved into so much more. Initially, it was going to be a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) CCA we’d host weekly to allow younger students to explore the sciences. After a meeting with Ms Clare Buckland (Assistant Head of Faculty, Chemistry), we came up with the idea for an event where we could gather a group of students to showcase the STEM passion projects that they’d been working on. 
 
Planning the event
We gathered a team of about 20 students in our year group to organise and present at the event. With the guidance and experience of Mr Pierre Dawson (Assistant Head of Faculty, Biology) and Ms Buckland, we spent the next six months organising the event as well as preparing our presentations and projects during our weekly meetings. 
 
Thomas G. and I decided to present a Go-Kart we’d been building from scratch with our friend Xavier W. As the months went by, projects from other team members entered the mix:

• Konstantin R. built a Rubik’s Cube solving robot
• Jeongmin L. made a device to assist the blind
• Owen Lee S. made a robotic hand 
• and so many more. 

A learning experience
Throughout the process, we all learned tons about how challenging event planning really was. We had to take everything from catering to marketing into account so that the event would go ahead smoothly. Six months went by quickly, and by June, we’d all completed all our projects. We held several rehearsals to iron out the wrinkles in the event and by the last one, we were thoroughly pleased with what we’d created. 
 
About 200 people attended the event, with students, parents, and teachers coming to watch. On the day of the event, 22 June, it was incredible to see the projects we’d heard about for months in person as they were brought into school. We saw electric skateboards, microscopes, and robots sitting on their stands, their proud creators alongside them. After an introduction by our CEO Mr Craig Considine as well as Head Team Lead Students Suzanne G. and Haider M. (the latter two were part of the STEMposium team), we were finally able to see the result of our six months of work. 
 
Teamwork in action
We had a wide range of presentation topics, ranging from students talking about their projects to teachers talking about their STEM passions. In a sense, I believe that the most gratifying part of the entire STEMposium process was the teamwork. We had 20 people with similar passions and one goal in mind, and I feel that that really made the event successful in the end. Now we have one final goal: to have STEMposium become a yearly event at Tanglin. As a team, we’d love to leave a legacy that inspires future cohorts, and we hope that STEMposium 2022 was just the first of many. 
 
Lastly, on the behalf of the entire STEMposium team, I’d like to thank Ms Buckland, who helped us get our idea off the ground, Mr Nicholas Hulbert (Assistant Head of Faculty, Physics) for his support, Mr David Roberts (English Specialist) for helping us with the CAS side of the event, and finally, Mr Dawson, who was with us for every meeting, and guided us the whole way through. 

View photos from the event below: