Building A Panna Arena.

Having a Panna arena was something that I really wanted to have and it was something I really pushed for because I felt it could bring lots of benefits, not just for myself or the crew but also to grow the sport in singapore. It will allow us to have a suitable place to practice and improve ourselves. With a panna arena we will also be able to host competition which will attract new players and at the same time we can motivate the existing players to train harder for the competition. For most of you who do not know...I actually go around asking many individual how do they stay motivated and how they think I can help to motivate the players in the community. So one of the response I got was jams/meet ups where they would look forward for the session and the other was competitions where they would put in extra effort to do well for the event (I really put in a lot of effort to get feedback and find new ideas to help the community! <3 )

Though having a panna arena may seems nice and beneficial...having one was not an easy task. An order from Europe could easily cost $2800-$4000 SGD since it is not cheap to get it delivered to Asia. The figure was way too high and out of our reach. Making the arena was actually a pretty fresh idea and some countries were actually trying to do it though the end result was far from perfect in some case. In our situation where non of us have the experience of even making or building thing, it was not a ideal situation and making the arena left a high margin of error. For some reason, the decision to go ahead with this project or not seems to be resting on my shoulder and I felt a huge burden. I thought of it for really long, at the same time doing research and asking around for help when I have questions or struggle to come up with an idea to make certain parts of the arena.

After thinking for a really long time, I decided to go ahead with the idea as I think it is really important to have the arena. First steps was the designs and measurements. A few months ago, I actually made a portable goal post which was convenient to bring around but it was slightly too small. I did not want to take the size I found on the internet as I have seen the pictures before and the size was too big for my liking. I wanted to customize a size which I feel is ideal, not too big nor too small, so eventually I managed to come up with the dimension of the goal. After the goal, the next step was to come up with the dimensions of the arena itself. I researched a few arena that I could find on the market and got a estimate size before using measuring tapes and markers to estimate/test the size.

The actual construction of the arena and finding of materials was the biggest headache. Fortunately, while I was at Ikea, I came across a few panels that seem to be suitable material for the panels needed. The size however was much smaller than what was needed. My parents actually gave a suggestion of combining 3 of this such panel to make it into the long piece that we need. After measuring the size, it was just the length that I planned and the height was just a little different from what I originally wanted but the difference was really slight so we decided to go with it. The materials were eventually moved to kallang area(The cage) where all of the cutting and construction took place. I managed to get help from my uncle to assist with the cutting and drilling after we miserably failed on our first attempt. It was so much hard work and we had to go down to kallang (which is far for everyone) a few times a week to rush the panna arena out for an event in November.

Eventually the panna arena was completed and I was very happy with most of the outcome. The size was perfect in my opinion and the panels was fold-able which made it easier to carry around and transport it. I'm looking forward to organizing events with the panna arena and can't wait to use it for future event!