By Koh Hui Theng

FUN is the name of his game. And it's clear that Associate Professor Cai Yiyu loves his job.

You can tell from the way his eyes light up when chatting about Mobile Immersive Theatre (MIT), a 3-D program he has developed. Students make clips by combining interactive-gaming elements with 3-D arts, music and stereographic animation.

The programme director at Nanyang Technological University's School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering mentors talented youngsters picked from secondary schools and tertiary institutions.

The tertiary students go for 12-month attachments to fine-tune their digital-media skills. Their works are then evaluated in the National Digital Science and Arts Competition at the end of the attachment.

Prof Cai, 46, a Singaporean, explained: "Students are excited about the 3-D aspect, and when they are interested, they tend to learn more.

"This programme aids greater innovation, because it encourages people to pursue both the sciences and the (digital) arts."

Creative Community Singapore (CCS) has supported his idea by putting him in touch with various schools.

To date, MIT has trained over 80 youths, including undergraduate Shi Xiang Jun, 19.

A Nanyang Girls High School alumnus, the China- born youth is pursuing a physics degree at Brown University and a dual digital-media degree at Rhode Island Design School, because she "did not want (her education) to be confined only to the physical sciences".

She is following in the footsteps of Prof Cai's hero, the accomplished Florentine sculptor, engineer and musician, Leonardo da Vinci.

Said Prof Cai: "I hope to create local 'da Vinci' labs that incubate creativity by combining the sciences with the arts."

Unleashing students' creativity is also what digital-media whiz Daniel Heath, 33, does for a living.

Throw in a passion for gaming, a desire to nurture the next generation of gamers and – voila!– his multimedia programme Meeting, or Moulding Entrepreneurs Through Innovative Gaming, was born.

Started in June last year, it teaches students aged 10-15 how to create and market interactive games.

Said Mr Heath, who is also the chief executive officer of IT Leisure and Education: "I was so frustrated by the lack of skilled game creators in Singapore that I decided to train youngsters not just (to) create games, but also
(to help them) hone basic entrepreneurial skills."

Armed with CCS support, he approached 13 schools about developing games that would make lessons more interactive.

Based on a theme selected by the school, each class of 20 is taught storyboard development and characterisation.

"So, you could be zapping the bad guy when you solve a chemical equation correctly. In the process, you have fun learning the syllabus," said Mr Heath.

kohht@sph.com.sg