142 teams of students from 57 schools tried their very best to impress the judges during the Initial Judging cum Exhibition of Hong Kong Student Science Project Competition 2008 held on 10 May (Saturday) at InnoCentre, hoping to get admitted to the Final Judging on 31 May (Saturday). They also kept promoting their projects to the 1,000 visitors as whose votes would determine which booths would get the 'Best Booth Presentation Award'. It was a day full of fun and excitement.

'The students have done extremely well and the decision to pick 20 finalists, 10 each for the Junior Secondary and the Senior Secondary, is a difficult one,' said Mr Chen Kin-wah, Senior Accreditation Officer of ITC who served as one of the judges in the Initial Judging.

Other than identifying 20 teams for the Final Judging, the judges also awarded four projects with a Sport Science Award. Echoing the Olympic Game 2008 to be held in Beijing, China, the Sport Science Awards were given to outstanding teams working on sport related themes. A total of 33 projects were related to sport science.

The Hong Kong Student Science Project Competition is an annual event jointly organised by the Innovation and Technology Commission, The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups, the Education Bureau and the Hong Kong Science Museum. It is one of the core government-supported programmes for fostering an innovation and technology culture in Hong Kong and has become the most popular science and technology competitions among students and schools. Up to now, more than 3,000 students have participated in the competition.