The 34^th China Adolescents Science and Technology Innovation Contest (CASTIC), organized by nine ministries and commissions including China Association for Science and Technology together with the Macao Special Administrative Region was concluded successfully on 25^th July. The event saw the participation of nearly 700 teachers and students from 31 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. It also had around 200 participants from 52 countries and regions across the world. Macao’s team consisting of 18 teachers and students won 5 first prizes, 4 second prizes, and 25 special awards in the Contest.  
 

90% of student winners having been funded by FDCT

        Macao’s team delivered excellent results, winning the “Youth Science and Technology Innovation Contest”  with all of its 10 student projects, and the “Science and Technology Education Innovation Contest of Science Instructors” with four of its five projects. Nine of the awarded student projects and three of the winning instructor projects had been funded by Macao’s Science and Technology Development Fund (FDCT). The team also carried off awards for its nine projects in the “Youth Science and Technology Practice Contest”. Six of them had been funded by FDCT.

        Among the funded student projects were Lao Chio Long’s “2-in-1 Intelligent Autonomous Underwater Robot”, which was honored with “CAST President’s Award”, the highest accolade in CASTIC. Macao students have won the award many times in recent years, demonstrating local students’ strong science and technology innovation capacity. Lin Yanlong, who was awarded the Science Instructor Distinction Award, had learned to improve his teaching skills from his experience with Intel ISEF in Pittsburg of the United States. His trip was subsidized by FDCT in 2018.
 

Special Awards set to influence a wider part of the community

        This time the organizers invited the University of Macau, the Macau branch of the Bank of China, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (Macau) Limited and Macau Telecom Company, Ltd.(CTM) to set up special awards that honor excellent youths showing science and research potentials, and science popularization instructors delivering prominent results in science education, in the hope of bringing more social attention to youth science and technology education and the training of science and technology talents for Macao. The awards are the University of Macau Award for Science and Technology Innovation, Bank of China Innovation Science and Technology Award, ICBC Macau Special Award for Scientific Research and Innovation and CTM Digital Macau Award.
 

Drone light show lifting the atmosphere

        CASTIC, being the most influential youth science and technology competition with the most contest categories in China, is the largest of its kind in Asia. Considering that it is the 20^th anniversary of Macao’s handover, FDCT decided to give students, teachers and guests a memorable experience and celebrate the anniversary by having EHang Egret organize a large outdoor drone formation light show above an artificial lake within the campus of the University of Macau in the wake of the “Special Award Presentation Ceremony” in the evening of 24^th July. A body of 300-plus drones rose to the sky, where they sparkled to form the logo of the contest, a golden lotus flower and other shapes themed around the 20^th anniversary of the city’s handover magnificently. The performance was sponsored by the Bank of China Macau Branch and supported by CTM.

        FDCT gives weight to science popularization, so it has been investing substantial resources and making improvements in its work on science popularization in addition to actively expanding its scope. The Fund has been putting in massive resources in science popularization activities held by primary and secondary schools, with a continuous increase in its funding amount and the number of project grant approvals. Despite having a small team, the Fund has dedicated a group of staff to follow up on the funding for science popularization projects. They check the funded projects regularly every year by visiting the premises concerned to gain an in-depth understanding of the environment for science popularization and needs of the teachers and students involved and to examine the project results, and then they will recommend and subsidize the participation of outstanding projects in Macao’s Science and Technology Week, various science popularization activities that it organizes together with science popularization entities from mainland China as well as other related events. FDCT has also been stepping up its subsidies for projects focused on practice and introducing schools to new activities in recent years. On the other hand, it launched the “Potential Capacity Development Program” in cooperation with the University of Macau and the Macau University of Science and Technology to offer high school students with good potential special training employing the institutions’ teaching resources. In the program, which places a strong emphasis on improving participants’ innovative thinking skills and global vision, FDCT organizes and subsidizes the participants to take part in the summer courses and summer camps of some universities in Israel and Germany as well as international and regional competitions. Besides, it arranges pre-contest training respectively for students joining such major contests as CASTIC and Intel ISEF. The training has been proven extremely useful to the contestants. Despite a continuous improvement in students’ performance in these competitions, most of the winning works are hands-on projects, indicating room for progress in respect of basic science projects. For this reason, FDCT is drawing up a series of plans aimed at enhancing their performance in basic science projects aside from their innovative capacity. Otherwise, the Fund will keep increasing its subsidies for science popularization projects and enlarging its investment in the potential development program. To be specific, the Fund will continue to bring in scientists with experience in promoting science popularization from home and aboard, introduce diverse scientific activities and upgrade its talent development and training mechanism. Besides, it will enable more students to study and take part in competitions outside Macao by making more extensive and effective use of local universities’ resources. FDCT hopes that these measures will help create more favorable conditions for nurturing excellent young science and technology talents.

        Macao’s achievements in this year’s CASTIC resulted from the SAR government’s persistent input of resources in fostering the planning for science popularization and the implementation of the plans in the city. FDCT expects to work more closely with the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau, the University of Macau, the Macau University of Science and Technology, other schools, science and technology societies, and the like in these aspects. It is confident that the scientific literacy of local students will keep rising and they will deliver increasingly better performance in the world’s prestigious science popularization competitions.