Today marks the 10th year anniversary of Nullspace. We have grown both as a company and as a team, despite the many challenges through the years.
Here’s a flashback of our eventful journey (shared previously in this post).
2008 – Founding
Jasper Loong [front, centre] brought together a group of friends to provide competitive robotics CCA training to schools.
The co-founding team were made of students from several different schools who met at various national robotics competitions in Singapore. We hired our friends to be part-time instructors and as a team, we went back to our various alma mater to do robotics training.
2009 – First Major Competition Win
We started gaining traction and expanded our clientele to more schools clients.
In 2009, we won the National Junior Robotics Competition with Bukit Panjang Govt High School, which established Nullspace as a serious player in the robotics training industry.
We also had the opportunity to gain international exposure with a showcase in Abu Dhabi.
IDE2011 at Dunman Secondary School
IDE2017 at Anglican High School
2011 – IDE Competition Established
The Innovation, Design and Engineering (IDE) Challenge started as a competition with only 11 teams in 2011. The spirit behind the IDE competition is the element of an unknown challenge or mission, which will only be revealed at the start of the competition. These challenges vary from year to year, but the emphasis on innovation, design and engineering remains at the heart of the competition.
In 2012, we started IDE Robotics to include LEGO robotics competition event.
In 2015, we started IDE Maker to include Arduino based projects for the competition.
For IDE2017, we saw a total of 387 students from 137 teams representing 31 Singapore schools/organisations take part in the competition.
2013 – Founding of C4RL
Nullspace Centre for Robotics Learning (C4RL) was created to meet the growing demands of robotics training outside schools. Our first centre, C4RL-WEST, is located at the Old Bukit Timah Fire Station at Upper Bukit Timah Road. We love the place for its greenery, quietness and most importantly, the free parking.
Leveraging on our robotics training experience in schools, we created the Robotics Certificate Program to equip children with the skills to build and program LEGO robots. We wanted children who were not in their school’s robotics club, to be able to join our courses and compete on the same level, simply because they have the interest and passion for robotics.
2015 – Arduino and Team Building
Arduino Inventor Certificate Programme
In 2015, Nullspace Centre for Robotics Learning (C4RL) launched the Inventor Certificate Programme based on Arduino. Arduino is a popular microcontroller platform for hobbyists to create electronics projects.
These projects can range from an automatic plant watering project to a miniature pinball machine. The objective of the course is to enable children to create something that interests them, utilizing their own programming skills, to bring that concept to life.
Corporate Team Building using LEGO
In 2015, we also started running our programmes for companies and adult participants through our corporate team building events. Participants get to pit themselves against each other in our real time robot strategy game Mech Wars.
For more “serious” adult learners, we also conduct crash courses in LEGO Mindstorms robotics to teach mechanical and programming concepts!
Corporate Team Building NTUC Income
Introduction to Robotics at SAP Asia Pacific
2016 – Launch of ThinkCrate
In 2016, we launched our first consumer education product: ThinkCrate – a series of Arduino projects for children and adults who to create their own electronics projects.
The idea behind ThinkCrate was to enable everyone to build their own cool tech projects without the hassle of sourcing for the different components. Furthermore, the step-by-step instructions provided on our online portal, also provides users with an opportunity to learn as they build, ultimately gaining skills to create and modify their projects.
Presenting our ThinkCrate projects at the MCI Workplan Seminar 2017
2017 – Second C4RL Branch
In 2017, we opened of our 2nd branch at Siglap! We had our Open House event at C4RL-EAST on 6th of May to celebrate this exciting milestone. Guests attended the various informative talks, hands-on LEGO robot building activities and free ice cream on the day! In celebration of Star Wars Day, and the opening of our 2nd branch, we decided to build Death Star II as part of teambuilding. The entire project took over 10 hours and 20,000 bricks to complete. It is now featured in our C4RL-EAST branch.
2018 – Celebrating our 10th Anniversary
Cheers to the many more years to come, and thank you to all who have supported us along the way!
