Science Innovations That Make Life a Little Easier
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Designing the pet feeding machine allowed Xinmin Secondary School students to put theory into practice, while deepening their interest in science and technology.
Imagine being away from home, but still able to feed your pet fish and change the water in the fish tank via SMS messages. In fact, if you have a 3G phone, you can also monitor how your fish are doing via a webcam.
Though this gadget-enabled wizardry might sound like something out of Tomorrowland, the automatic fish-feeding and water-changing machine was developed right here in Singapore, by Xinmin Secondary School students. While electronic fish-feeding machines are available in the market, the students' version has added features: users can change the time of feeding or activate the changing of water, all through SMS messages.
The project was part of the school's Science and Technology Research Programme in collaboration with Nanyang Polytechnic. Sec 4 student Ng Jing Lin was one of those who worked on it, and as she says, "In school, I learn a lot about theory but this project let me see how theories actually work in reality. I gained a lot of experience in the past year and I'm happy to be able to invent something."
Nurturing passion for the sciences
Getting students excited about putting scientific concepts into practice is what Xinmin Secondary School aims to do with its Science and Technology Research Programme. A Centre of Excellence for Science, the school established its Science Academy in 2007, looking to groom talented students and nurture their love for this field.
The pet-feeding machine uses wireless technology to allow owners to feed their fish and change the water via SMS messages.
The research programme was launched in 2008 and is the Academy's first collaboration with Nanyang Polytechnic. 27 polytechnic lecturers supervised 81 Sec 3 students (now in Sec 4) to pursue 26 research projects offered by the polytechnic. The projects spanned diverse fields such as life sciences, engineering, information technology, health sciences, and interactive and digital media.
As Mr Lim Boon Ping, Head of the Science Department, explains, "The research programme is open to all students and they can select projects they are interested in, subject to availability. The students' Science grades have no bearing on their chances of getting a project of their choice - it's purely based on interest and passion."
Helping the visually handicapped and the elderly
Many of the projects were angled towards making life a little easier for those who need a little extra support. For example, three students worked together on Project eyeNAVI, an auditory navigational tool for the visually handicapped, which received a merit award at the 2009 Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors' Awards. The tool enables the visually handicapped to navigate shopping areas where there are no directional tiles on the ground.
EyeNAVI, a navigational tool for the visually handicapped, won a merit award at the Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors' Award 2009.
The user can download pre-recorded directions from the Internet and listen to them on an MP3 player to find his or her way around. Because the recordings are prepared in tracks, they can be easily edited when the place changes and the directions need to be updated.
Part of the students' research included interviewing some members of the Singapore Association of Visually Handicapped, to ensure that their innovation would cater to the needs of the visually handicapped. Student Sophia Tan says, "Initially, our instructions were in terms of the number of steps a person needs to take. But they told us that it is very difficult to keep track of the number, so we did away with that."
Teammate Sherry Wan adds, "We also included instructions like 'turn 45 degrees to your left', but they told us that it's difficult to estimate how much is 45 degrees. They taught us to use the clock directions instead."
Paying close attention to others' needs also helped another team with their research project. "We see our grandparents having certain difficulties with their daily activities and we wanted to invent something to help them," points out Regina Pung, one of the four team members.
In the process of designing the chopping board, the team members developed a closer bond with their grandparents.
They came up with Wei Yi (which translates as 'only you' in English), a multi-purpose chopping board with a removable grater, slicer, spikes and bread guard. It's designed to make cutting round fruits, grating and slicing easier tasks for the elderly. The grated or sliced vegetables can be easily collected by placing a plate below the grater or slicer. The bread guard keeps bread in place when spreading butter and jam.
"We called it 'Wei Yi' because we made it especially for the elderly!" quips team member Wendy Soh. "Our passion is to help the elderly - that's why we came together for this project." Besides learning about teamwork and time management, the group has also developed a better understanding of their grandparents and a closer bond with them.
All 26 projects from the research programme were showcased at the school's first Science and Technology Symposium on 11 March 2009 and Mr Lim is looking ahead to this year's round of projects. "We're going to extend this research programme to some of our Sec 4 N(A) students. Some of them have already responded and are on board with their projects."