feature Chevron Enjoy Science: Young Makers Contest Year 3
Chevron, together with partners, recently announced the winners of the “Enjoy Science: Young Makers Contest Year 3”, part of Chevron Enjoy Science, during Maker Faire Bangkok 2019’s launch in front of The Street Ratchada. This year, the contest was held under the “Green Innovation” theme which invited young makers both in general and vocational education tracks to create the inventions aimed at improving the quality of life for the public in both short and long run and focused on environmental friendliness, pollution reduction, energy saving, and the conservation of natural resources and environment. The winning teams were also granted scholarships and have the opportunities to join Maker Faire Bay Area in San Francisco, USA in May 2019.
The winning team in the vocational education category developed an invention under the contest concept ‘Green Innovation’ with the purpose to help upgrade their local product’s sanitation standards for better sales and better quality among consumers. Mr. Nuruddeen Jeapee, 19 and Mr. Wathhanaphong Petcharat, 20 from Surat Thani Technical College saw how sales of oysters, the province’s top selling product, dropped. Since it’s the most popular product of their hometown, the duo thought it would be nice to have a proper way to clean the oysters before selling them to the market.
“The sale of oysters from Surat Thani has dramatically dropped because of the health-related concerns that oysters from our province are not clean enough. That’s why we invented the Clean Oyster machine to help clean the oysters before selling them to the market,” Mr. Nuruddeen explained. “Our machine cleans the oysters in three steps using a 100% natural approach to clean with water, seaweed, and UV light to make sure that the oysters are bacteria free and clean inside and out,” he added.
Another winning team mentioned that having their school situated right by the canal, Mr. Manop Kongsak, 17 and Mr. Surasak Fonghirunsiri, 17, who are both studying at Satri Phatthalung School, suffered from the sickening smell from a polluted canal which spread all over their school as well as their community. Since it happened right at their backyard, the duo began to investigate the origin of such a smell that was hanging in the air. When they explored the canal, they found the origin of the problem. The water was polluted by garbage and an oil slick. As attempts to solve the predicament had gone in vain, the duo decided that they must do something to save the community. Therefore, they used the technology they have been developing for six years in an attempt to make the canal cleaner, and they succeeded. Very few inventions come from zero failures. After many attempts, the duo successfully developed the water surface cleaning robot operated with a solar panel. It has a camera and rolling balls to collect the oil slick that floats on the surface of the water.
Mr. Artit Krichphiphat, business support general manager at Chevron Thailand Exploration and Production Ltd., thinks it is important that Thai youths are using their creativity to help foster a cleaner environment through their inventions, applying their STEM knowledge and skills to solve challenges and benefit their communities. “As our country is moving towards Thailand 4.0, the innovation-driven era, it is important to encourage our youth to become more interested in pursuing STEM education and promote a positive attitude towards STEM subjects. They can do this through “Enjoy Science: Young makers Contest”, a platform where young students can flex their STEM skills and bring their creations to life through their creativity”. The Young Makers Contest is part of the Enjoy Science Project a 5-year, public private partnership to strengthen Thailand’s competitiveness and innovation by improving science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and technical vocational education and training (TVET) across the country. The project is one of five major development initiatives undertaken across Chevron’s global operations by partnering with a range of partners in civil society, academia, the private sector, and the government.
“Chevron aims to help Thailand build a highly skilled future workforce. Through the years, Chevron has been committed to support the cause, as we believe that through these activities we can instill youth with the love for STEM. This is part of our efforts to build the capacity of our young people and empower them to grow into a generation of capable workers and innovators, the main driving force in accelerating the development of an innovation-driven economy in the 4.0 era,”
Mr. Artit said.
