I've always been fascinated by theme park technology, from the very first Audio-Animatronics (animated electronic characters) in the Enchanted Tiki Room to the latest stuntronics (robotic stunt doubles) at Avenger's Campus. The Omnimover ride system, which allowed ride vehicles to swivel, has evolved into more immersive trackless dark rides. The combination of multiple theme park technologies in recent years has created attractions that are unbelievably life-like.
While details about projects at Universal Studios Singapore (USS) are often kept under wraps, major global projects at prominent Universal and Disney parks often release public patents and blueprints. By keeping up with these documents, I learn all the fascinating new technologies in the industry.
I often read up on all these patents and blueprints, hoping and wondering what might eventually come to USS for Singaporeans to enjoy. While many of these patents don't come to fruition, they inspire future designs.
Transformers: The Ride at USS is an improved version of The Amazing Adventure of Spider-Man. Using their experience with these two rides, Universal recently outdid themselves with Beijing's Jurassic World Adventure. With audio-animatronics rivalling or even beating Disney's life-like A1000s, you would actually believe a dinosaur is chasing you!
Bryan Lye, VITAL
As an educator, I have always been interested in learning more about the latest technologies and incorporating them into my lessons. While technologies for game-based learning have been around for a long time, I only recently discovered how educators from other countries have been creating interactive fiction games using open-source tools like Twine. These games develop students' literacy skills and get them to take on different perspectives through the different choices they make.
This spurred me to create my own game on Twine. I spent a week looking up tutorials, typing out the HTML code and fine-tuning some elements before testing it out for one of my classes. The response was encouraging as the students were able to make links between the fictional game and the History content they were learning. The students were also very engaged and excitedly discussing whether they ended up "dying" or "surviving" in the game.
However, as with any other lesson, there are always areas for improvement. I intend to continue familiarising myself with other elements of Twine and get feedback from other teachers. Hopefully, with the effective use of gamification, students will be more engaged and become more motivated to keep learning.
Aw Yang Jie Ling, MOE (Kranji Secondary School)
Cybersecurity mesh! It is defined by Gartner as "a flexible, composable architecture that integrates widely distributed and disparate security services".
A mesh will use analytics and intelligence coupled with ‘meshed’ controls around identity, policy, posture and information/event visibility. This will improve security by shifting the control points closer to the assets to be protected, and protect against emerging threats in real-time.
I am reading more about this as it gets more pertinent. I believe it could be useful in preventing hackers, which has seen an upward trend in recent times. It would be interesting to read more real-life use cases as implementation widens globally.