Young minds prove their mettle By : Teresa Yong
KUALA LUMPUR: The inventors may be young, but their creations may prove to be ageless. For budding inventor and participant of the Shell-NST Young Inventors Award 2008, Saeshan Pillai, the motto for creating an aircraft that runs on a renewable source of energy was "Make it Fly".
His idea was to invent a plane that would be powered by the sun's energy, which is absorbed by a solar panel and is stored in a specially-adapted battery."I got the idea of creating the mini plane from watching a movie," said the 11-year-old.
Persevering through trial and error, Saeshan finally created his mini plane with the support of his dad, Selvaraju Pillai, a human resource director in a chemical company.
In the secondary school category, SMK King George V, Seremban, Negri Sembilan, emerged champion. Comprising of Timothy Kwan Joon Ming, Puay Sheng Hwa, both 18, and 16-year-olds Lee Yin Yin and Marya Suflin Muhamad Halim Shah, the team cooked up the winning Georgian Solar Cooker made from recycled materials and costing only about RM10.
It is touted to be 3E-effective, economical and environment-friendly, as well as portable.Kwan said the partially panelled and parabolic cooker works on the concept of light reflection. Sunlight is concentrated in a cooking area and then reflected to the cooking pot. At the presentation, they showed a video clip of how they cooked various dishes, from eggs to chicken curry, using their invention.The only drawback is that the cooker does not work on a cloudy day and it took three to four hours to cook chicken curry, said Yin Yin, who turned 16 yesterday.
Second prize winners were the four-member team from SMK Muzaffar Syah, Malacca, who invented the Midori Table and third place went to the four-girl team from SMK Sultan Ibrahim, Johor Baru, Johor, for their Solar Fan cum Energy Storage.
SMK Kolombong, Inaman, Sabah, which invented the Hydro-Wind Generator; Malay College Kuala Kangsar, Perak, which created the Modern Solar Dryer (soldra); SMK Tasik Damai, Ipoh, Perak, which came up with the Vacuum-Fire Extinguisher, SMK Convent, Ipoh, Perak, which put together the Hydrojuicer, were awarded consolation prizes of RM500, a trophy and certificates.
NIE manager Mary Chandapillai said the Award was a celebration of creativity and the culmination of a series of workshops held nationwide from June 24 to 30 on the theme "Can Technology Save Our Planet?"Sixty entries were received and 10 finalists were selected and given RM200 seed money to come up with workable prototypes.
Chief judge Ahmad Zahir commented that the participants achieved a certain high standard, but some of them needed to develop their hypotheses more clearly.
"Your creative idea should be simple and very clear. It is not necessary for it to be sophisticated." While some schools were good in presenting their ideas, others needed to improve their presentation, he added.
Shell Malaysia corporate affairs general manager Datuk Wahiruddin Abdul Wahid said Shell was committed to supporting R&D in education through innovation and technology to reduce waste.He thanked NST for creating climate change awareness that resulted in "wonderful, inspiring supplements written by students".He added that the award was a fine example of encouraging our youths and rewarding them for thinking out of the box.NST group editor Datuk Syed Nadzri Syed Harun was also present at the ceremony.
