Thursday October 11, 2012

Primary school students invent cool raincoat

By LAMAH BAKAR
sarawakstar@thestar.com.my

New look: The rain coat invented by the team from SJK Chung Hua.

KUCHING: A creative piece by a team of four students from SJK Chung Hua – Chua Hoong Shen, Phua Joon Wei, Malverick Irvine and Jonathan Bong – won them first place at an invention competition.

The contest was held at the Batu Lintang Teachers Education Institute, Jalan Batu Lintang here yesterday.

The team had wonderfully transformed the everyday raincoat into one that is guaranteed to not get your shoes or pants wet by framing the bottom part of the raincoat like an umbrella.

“The idea came to us from our own experience using raincoats and it took us three weeks to finish the project,” said Hoong Shen after receiving the trophy on behalf of his team.

Another creative invention by a group of girls from the same school also won second place. Eily Tan and her teammates worked on the idea of recycling a 350ml water bottle into a pencil case by adding a zipper to it.

Meanwhile, SK Rampangi came in third with their invention of a headlight that resembles a simpler version of a caving headlight.

There were 54 groups involved in the competition and science exhibition.

Most of the projects at the exhibition were made from waste materials such as drinking straws, plastic bottles, ice-cream sticks, plastic wrappers and so on.

The competition was held in conjunction with the exhibition under the institute’s Kemasains programme, in collaboration with Yayasan Negeri Sarawak.

“We have been organising the science exhibition since 2002 but it is the first time that we have held an invention competition as well.

“There has been an increase in the number of schools taking part,” said Kemasains co-ordinator Murugan Mini Ratamun.

The Kemasains programme is aimed at helping students realise that science is an important subject that is fun and can be applied to our everyday life.

“The Education Department and Yayasan Sarawak can only do so much to encourage the students but it is really up to them to take the initiative to learn,” said Yayasan Sarawak assistant director Syed Nizamu–ddin Sayed Khassim during the closing ceremony.

News

Thursday October 11, 2012

Primary school students invent cool raincoat

By LAMAH BAKAR sarawakstar@thestar.com.my

By LAMAH BAKAR
sarawakstar@thestar.com.my