Eureka 2011

ECE ran an event called Eureka 2011 on 25 Oct 2011, Tuesday.  We invited some secondary school students to our campus for some fun competition.  I was very impressed by a group of girls from SCGS.  They were obviously very intelligent. I was manning a Jeopardy (Trivia game quiz) booth as part of the fringe events.
When this group of 6 girls came to my booth, I divided them into 2 groups, 3 against 3, to play the game.  The leader of one of the groups was very interesting.  I don't know her name, let's called her Mary.  She was able to come up with very good distractor to confuse her competitors.
Let me give you an example.  It was her competitors' turn to answer and their question was to identify a device and it was a Linksys wireless router.
Mary's opponent said, "Linksys."
I said, "No, that is the company."
She said. "I know. I know."
I could see her thoughts converging and the answer is going to come up anytime.  But just before the connection could be made.  Mary prompted, "Modem".
Her competitor retorted, "No, it is not modem."  She went on repeating it a few times.  I could see the agony on her face as she was thrown off balanced by Mary.
In the end, Mary won comfortably.  I was so impressed by her that I offered to let her choose any of the NP souvenirs.  Then came surprise number two.  She scanned the collection of colorful highlighters, CD albums and shoe bags; shook her head and said, " I have no need for any of them."  She started to suggest to her friend, "You play squash, you might need a shoe bag."
I am very impressed with this little girl because she is way ahead of me in coming up with good distractors ( a skill I needed to come up with good MCQ) and her maturity: she goes for needs not wants.