A four-member team won the national second prize at the China University Student Computer Design Contest with their micro course exploring Xin Qiji, a famous Southern Song period (1127-1279) poet. Sun Hanxue led fellow team members Song Gula, Tan Yang and Li Dongheng to victory and they were presented the President's Medal by Beijing International Studies University (BISU).

The team members pose for a group photo.

A simple question "If others can, why can't we?" ignited their passion for the competition. Inspired by the achievements of their seniors in similar contests, they were encouraged and determined to give it a try.

They chose the "Micro-Lecture and Teaching Aids" category in the computer design competition, focusing on the "Chinese Language" track. Li, from Jinan, Shandong province, proposed using Xin Qiji as the focal point.

Li's personal connection to Xin, through previous exposure to documentaries and literature about him, and even his school's name, "Jiaxuan", being Xin's courtesy name, made this a natural choice.  

Xin is renowned for his bold and unrestrained verse, but his more delicate works, such as "Qing Yu An-Lantern Festival", are equally remarkable. The team unanimously decided to take this poem as the core content of their micro-lecture.

The team members jointly make a short video about Xin Qiji, a famous Southern Song period (1127-1279)poet.

"The experience of studying together gave us a special rapport."  Their previous participation in various team competitions laid a crucial foundation. This rapport, which was not built overnight, was a valuable asset accumulated through past collaborations.

Unraveling problems, optimizing collaboration methods and learning from failures paved the way for their current success.

After submitting their work, they advanced through multiple rounds of selection and defense, emerging from the school competition, winning a second prize in Beijing, and ultimately securing a national second prize.

To better present their content, they constructed a well-defined audiovisual system: teacher explanations as the core, dynamic text prompts for key points and ink animations to illustrate the poem's imagery.

Xin's life journey from battlefield heroics to introspection was transformed into a vivid cognitive experience. The overlap of wartime animations with the poem's imagery brought the desolation to life, deepening students' understanding of Xin's life and emotional shifts.

Learning from their first competition experience, the team valued external perspectives. This time, they invited instructors to review their work. Teachers scrutinized the video content and conducted offline screenings to gather student feedback, helping them further integrate educational and artistic elements.

Reflecting on their journey to the national competition, the team acknowledged having a bit of "luck": they narrowly missed winning first prize by 0.3 points and were initially ineligible for the national level. However, a last-minute vacancy allowed them to continue.

"If we hadn't insisted on original content, we might not have been the replacement," team members noted.

Another "lucky bonus" was a small design during their presentation. Li portrayed Xin in a brief immersive performance, narrating the poem's background and emotions. According to them, this approach might have fortunately won the judges' favor, adding a highlight to their presentation.

But beyond these chance factors, what truly sustained them were the countless early mornings with repeated revisions made to each animation frame, the meticulous crafting of scripts and the precise adjustment of characters' emotions in AI animations.

Sun's team navigated their way through the competition by taking Xin's poetic spirit as their guide and they were fortified by the camaraderie of classmates. Luck often favors those who persevere in adversity, they said.