The category we chose to participate in for the competition is Community Groups and Special Populations

Our community district is:

Our school resides in Yunghe City, New Taipei City. It is located near the southeast part of the Taipei Basin and is linked by three bridges over the Xindian River. Yung Ho is as prosperous as Taipei city, and it is well known for its numerous small shops and attractions such as Korean Street, Weekend Farmers' markets, Yang San Lang's Museum and the World Religions Museum.

Project Outline:

The choir was established in 1964, and in that year was awarded the honor of representing New Taipei City in the national elementary school competition. Years later, the Yu-Tsai choir has performed extremely well in each of the annual competitions and always received the highest praise from the judges. Although Yu-Tsai Elementary school is small, the standards used for selecting choir members not only include assessing the students musical talent and ability, but also considers the students interest and endurance.

Early each morning at Yu-Tsai, the choir arrives at school to practice. During the singing practices, the students found the fun of singing. At every public performance and competition, they discovered the excitement of singing. This year, the choir members continued to work hard for the national competition.

Our Internet Environment:

We utilized our school's ample computers to access the Internet: there are 50 computers in the computer lab, 4 computers in the library, each classroom also has its own computer and all of these have direct access to the Internet. Having convenient access to these resources really helped us in facilitating our projects' needs and getting work done.

Challenges and obstacles we overcame:

Class time

Apart from using lunchtimes to complete the work associated with the Cyberfair, we also some of our time outside of school time too. However as we can't forget about our studies, we had to work extra hard in class and not let the Cyberfair hold up our school work.

Work Allocation

For every activity, we split up the work that needed to be done. Everyone was responsible for completing their own job. Then all of the parts would fall together as one.

Collecting Material

From 1964 until today, the Yu-Tsai choir have had numerous outstanding achievements. However, all that information and all those photographs had never been collated in a single document before. We collected material from each year, and with the help of information collected in interviews, we created a complete history of the choir.

Physical Training with the Choir

In order to record the choir's dream catching process, we also got out of bed early and joined them in their morning training sessions. After seeing so many people overcome difficulties in order to succeed, we were moved and impressed.

Transcribing

This topic involved interviewing a vast number of people. When transcribing the interviews , we came across a lot of problems. Even in a short interview, the background noise or volume level meant that it took us a very long time to transcribe. Moreover, some people type very slowly which made the process very frustrating for them. However, we always helped and encouraged one another and by pulling together, we got through it.

Getting Over Shyness

In this year's Cyberfair team, most of the members were doing it for the first time. When interviewing people, they were often shy and nervous. However, after a lot of practice, they got better and better, gaining confidence each time.

Our Project Sound Bite:

This year's Cyberfair topic is about the Yu-Tsai Choir. Most of the members of the Cyberfair team are also members of the school choir. Since the reporters are also those being reported about, they needed to work even harder! Not only practicing for the choir and working on the Cyberfair, they also still had their normal classes to attend and all the home work that goes with them!

From this activity, we saw everyone giving their all in pursuit of a dream. We also saw the magic that is music. Even though we didn't know any of the members of the local community or the people at the hospice, through the delightful sounds of the choir, we were pulled closer together, and everyone's life became a little brighter!
Even though this was a really difficult period of time, we learned a lot during this project. To be able to be a member of the Cyberfair team has been an incredibly happy experience and we are honored to be part of this team.