Elizabeth – NCAA Tourney in Beijing

For both me and Michelle, our day started at 5 am so that we could watch the Duke vs. Kansas game. Even though that game turned out to be upsetting for us, we still had a great day! After breakfast, we went over to the UCAS gym and the competition was open for the public. There were so many people walking around and listening to everyone’s projects and it was very cool to see how many people were interested in science. A lot of Chinese students came up and asked to hear about my project and take a picture with me and I enjoyed talking to them and they asked some very good questions about my research.

After the public visitation and lunch, we had the student symposium where Michelle and a bunch of other students from different delegations presented their research in the lecture hall. Michelle did and fantastic job and I enjoyed hearing about some of the projects that I had not had a chance to see when I walked around the gym yesterday. I was really impressed by one student’s product that was an attachment to a steering wheel that helps detect when you are about to fall asleep while driving. The student symposium lasted until about 4 PM and then we went back across campus to an interactive science exhibit. Michelle, Kevin, Ritvik, and I all decorated masks with 3D pen which was a lot of fun.

Tonight after dinner was the special awards ceremony. In between awards there were cultural performances from different countries such as one of the Italian students playing piano and one of the Ukrainian students reciting poetry in front of a video about Ukraine. I am really looking forward to the second awards ceremony tomorrow and visiting the great wall!