Kosmo Exhibition Halls 101-103
9 am-3 pm
15 March
●Teams must arrive at the venue no later than 8 am on the day of the competition.
●Details on the breakdown of the points system for the competition can be found at www.buildit.com.
●All participants must submit a copy of the Terms and Conditions Agreement, duly (恰当地) signed on the day of the competition. The agreement can be obtained from our website or at the Build It office at Lavender Road.
●It is recommended that participants in the School category wear their school uniforms at the competition.
●Participants who have paid will be able to collect their gift bags at the entrance. Those who have not paid can make payment by cash, cheque or credit card at the payment counter (柜台) next to the entrance. Please collect your gift bags from the information counter inside the hall.
●All participants are encouraged to read the rules and regulations again before each competition. These will be placed on boards at each station. Participants who do not observe the rules will be disqualified.
Top Prize is a return trip for four to New York!
More than $5,000 worth of prizes will be given out!
Hurry! Have you made your robot yet?
After a 141-day adventure, Brendon Prince is in a position to become the first person to complete a circumnavigation（环线航行）of mainland Britain on a standup paddleboard____(桨叶式冲浪板), covering nearly 2,500 miles．
Prince, a father of three, paddled up to 16 hours a day, with the last leg (一段行程) on Tuesday a 25-mile trip along the Devon coast to his home in Torquay in relatively good conditions. "It feels great," he told The Guardian as he paddled to his final destination on his board.
Prince began his trip at the end of April when, in his words, he turned right out of Torquay ― and then headed clockwise（按顺时针方向）around Britain. He estimates that he has put his paddle into the water 8 million times. It was all done in the spirit of adventure but also to raise awareness of water safety. Prince was an off-duty lifeguard when he took part in an attempt to save a group of holidaymakers who got into trouble in the water at Mawgan Porth, in north Cornwall, in 2014. Three of the visitors drowned.
From that day, he has made it his life's mission to teach drowning prevention, founding the charity Above Water. Money raised during his circumnavigation will be used to develop a water safety app for schools. He said, "If just one child stayed safe when near water having heard about this achievement, it would have been worthwhile."
Prince said the north was the coldest, the east the windiest, the south the most "gnarly" (which he defines as a state that leaves you feeling somewhere between feeling uncomfortable and feeling in danger), while the west was the wildest. Prince paddled without a support boat and the longest distance covered in a single day was 47 miles. The shortest, when the weather was particularly poor, was just over a mile. Prince said paddling in human-made environments proved trickier than in natural ones. "Nature is easier to predict than humans," he said.
The Amazon rainforest is nearing a tipping point (临界点), according to researchers from the University of Exeter, UK.
Previous studies have warned that the world's largest rainforest, which acts as the lung of the Earth, is approaching a critical threshold (限度). But most past research has depended on projections using models, not real-world observations.
Now, Tim Lenton and his colleagues have used two sets of satellite data covering between 1996 and 2016 to measure the greenness of the Amazon over time, watching for how it recovered after impacts such as drought and fires.
They found that since the early 2000s, 76 per cent of the region had become less resilient. Importantly, says Lenton, the signal of this growing trouble was picked up without immediately obvious changes such as huge drops in the forest's biomass (生物量) or tree cover.
"Why do we care about it? It's worth reminding ourselves that if it gets to that tipping point and we lose the Amazon rainforest then we get a significant feedback to global climate change," says Lenton. He says a change into savannah (稀树草原) would unlock about 90 billion tons of carbon dioxide stored in the trees and soil.
Lenton says he cannot put an exact date on how far off the rainforest's tipping point might be, but he expects it to be a process that would take in a few years. Other Amazon experts say the research adds to a growing body of evidence that the rainforest is approaching a tipping point.
The changes aren't the same throughout the rainforest. The south-eastern part of the Amazon has already changed to the point at which it is now a carbon emitter (释放者) rather than a carbon sink.
Matt Finer at the Amazon Conservation non-profit organization says the research could help decide which remaining parts of the forest to prioritize (优先) for protection. "The western and north-east Amazon appear the most resilient, showing the need to protect these areas now and in the future from any more damages," he says.
The Food Trainer (FoodT app) trains people to tap on images of healthy foods ― but to stop when they see unhealthy snacks, creating an association between these foods and stopping.
The new study, by the universities of Exeter and Helsinki, found that playing the game about once a day for a month led to an average one-point reduction of junk food consumption on an eight-point scale.
About half of the study's 1,234 participants followed the recommendation and played the game at least 10 times. Across all participants, an average weight loss of half a kilogram and a small increase in healthy food eaten were seen.
"As an example, someone who ate each junk food two to four times a week reduced this to once a week after using the app regularly for a month," said Professor Natalia Lawrence, of the University of Exeter.
"The app is free and it only takes about four minutes per day ― so it's something people realistically can do ― and our results suggest it is effective. And there's some evidence that the benefits were stronger for people who were more overweight."
"We would expect to see this, because the app targets mechanisms(机制)that lead people to become overweight, such as the strong desires to approach and consume junk foods."
Dr Matthias Aulbach, of the University of Helsinki, added, "For anyone with unhealthy eating habits, FoodT might be helpful."
The findings suggest that using the app regularly was linked with bigger changes in eating habits.
Dr Aulbach stressed that their findings should be interpreted cautiously (谨慎地), because there was no comparison group and other factors (such as the possibility that people who did more training were also separately more motivated to lose weight) could play a part in the results.
One app user said, "Really useful. My desires have reduced dramatically and I no longer eat in the evening mindlessly."
Development of the app was made possible by donations, and app users who allow their data to be used have enabled this research and app improvements to be made.
Competition is a common phenomenon in our social life. There is constant competition for academic degrees, jobs, customers, money and so forth. In a sense, competition is one of the motive forces to the development of society.
Therefore, the only way to survive is to be competitive. Growing in a competitive environment is important for a child because future adult life is difficult. Finding a good job, for example, is an extremely competitive activity.
Today, most people obtain knowledge through various ways and a large number of people get good education. The quality of people is rapidly increasing. Competition is more violent than what we thought it should be. The potentially successful job applicant has to be prepared in stronger position by gaining more qualifications and experience. In the sports contests, the strongest will come out as winners. In the business world, to beat your competitors, you must be better than the other employees.
Though the only way our world rewards people is to give honor to the winners, not to the losers, by attempting to compete at different activities, we can still learn to win and lose, gain experience and know our strengths and weaknesses. Competition prepares us for the tough things in life.
Whether in games, in study or in business alike, the aim is to win the game, the degree, the trophy (奖), and the contract.
A. Otherwise, you will be defeated.
B. Modern society demands high-quality talents.
C. Learning to be competitive is clearly the best preparation for life.
D. There are also many people who have higher degrees in their special fields.
E. Children have to learn to be competitive in order to adapt to modern society.
F. In the natural world, the weak will be replaced by the strong and the fittest can live.
G. We compete when we play games and when we try to do better than others in our study.
If we redouble our efforts, our dreams will come true. Chen Zuobin had 1 for 13 years already. Finally, he decided to become a 2 again. Born in a mountain village in Anhui Province, Chen Zuobin walked out of the mountains for study when he was 19. Though he had a 3 life as a creative director of an international agency in Shanghai, he couldn't 4 the anxiety reflected in his dreams.
"I dreamed about 5 branch roads several times a year. I didn't know which one leads to 6 . It made me feel terrible." One day, Chen Zuobin said to his wife, "I want to go home." 7 being surprised, his wife said, "Follow your heart. Don't worry about me."
The young couple returned to their hometown and 8 the Real Food Farm just to lead a real and simple life. Chen Zuobin shook off the 9 and tiredness from too much workload in the city. Only in the mountains can they enjoy the 10 air. There isn't the smell of tail gas, but the smell of 11 when it shines over the woods. They live a life of "eating healthily and 12 well".
In a time 13 eating properly becomes a luxury in the urban life, it's truly a right way to return to the simplicity. "Life is a journey of 14 the proper way." said Chen Zuobin.
Those dreams about branch roads have 15 because he has found his own path.
注意：
1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
Celebrating Earth Day
The director of one firm decided to delegate（授权）some of the work to his deputy（副手）. He needed a brave and intelligent person, as he was in his youth. There were three such worthy people in the firm, and he did not know who was the best candidate for the position. Then he decided to use some old wisdom and came up with a test.
He prepared three identical suitcases and put them on the table. He got the three young men to come to his office and said to them, "I have known you for years, and each of you is a good and devoted employee. I am grateful for all your hard work in all these years. Now I need one deputy to help me, but it is tough for me to make a choice. After lots of thinking, I decided to give you a test." He pointed to the three suitcases on the table and said that the position would go to whoever passed the test.
He asked them to picture a situation in their mind: You come to a meeting with a very important and respectable client to sign a contract. The client is in a hurry and will not wait for long, and the contract must be signed right now. The contract is in the suitcase, but the keys are lost. There's no time to search for the keys. You have a minute to open the suitcase with a penknife. Whoever does it first will be the new deputy director. The three men nodded and wanted to start, but the director stopped them. He said there was one more condition: If they take this challenge and fail to open the suitcase, then at the end of the year they will not receive their bonuses. Or they can give up the test and continue working as before, and receive the bonuses at the end of the year.
注意：1．续写词数应为150左右；2．请按如下格式在相应位置作答。
Two of the workers thought about it and decided they didn't want to participate.
……
"Did you forget to lock them?" the guy asked in great surprise.
