“Let me get this straight. You created an App that allows students to interact with certain parts of their textbooks?”

I asked that question about midway during the presentation. By then, the 3 student presenters had actually already shown much of the App and, like a mother answering a child’s question, patiently replied, “Yes”.

It wasn’t that they presented poorly – far from it. I understood what they said just fine. Rather, it was more like watching a magician perform a magic trick as a child – I felt a mix of a sense of wonder (did that really happen?) and curiosity (how did he do that?). It’s like clarifying with the magician, “Did you really just saw a woman in half?”

Kester, Aloysius and Siying, creators of the Android App !Static, are from the Digital & Cyber Security (CDS) diploma course. The team, armed with an Android phone, a web cam, a laptop and a history textbook, were well-synchronised in their presentation of their app.

There were special QR-like barcodes on certain pages of the history textbooks. As Kester spoke, Siying would lift the phone’s camera over the barcode – upon which certain parts of the textbook would suddenly “come to life” in animation.

We saw, for example, how the Japanese came through Malaysia and invaded Singapore. Flip to another page, and suddenly the man on our thousand dollar bill, President Yusof bin Ishak, began speaking and describing the history of our presidency.

You need to see it to believe it.

As the realization of just what these students had created finally sunk in, conversation quickly turned to its potential.

“Will you be marketing this?”

“Is anyone picking this up? Will schools be implementing it in the future?”

“What are your plans for future development?”

It was a discussion about, as one IIT lecturer put it, the future of education. It was just fascinating, it made the lesson interesting. Several times we asked them to show us different samples of animation, just to see what else was “alive”.

“You know, this would get students reading their textbooks even before school starts,” quipped one IIT lecturer. Everyone agreed.

And that helped me realize why I was so fascinated by !Static. It made learning fun again. Not in a pretentious way, but a real “I want to learn more” way.

Their App recently won First Prize at the Splash Awards 2011 – Mobile Heritage, a competition organised by the Singapore Computer Society (SCS) and the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA), beating out nearly 20 other teams in the finals.

From what I saw, they totally deserved that first spot.

And guess – what inspired them?

Kester suddenly looked amused and sheepish, like he was about to share an inside joke.

“Honestly? The idea just came up one morning when we were having Yong Tau Foo in Bedok.”

Well. That’s one really inspiring bowl of Yong Tau Foo.

“Yeah! But they moved. We’re waiting for them to reopen again, haha…”

Well. So am I.