Sparking creativity, inspiring innovation
Imagine being able to transport heavy machinery or toxic materials with very little or no human intervention at all, or creating automated solutions to everyday problems like garbage disposal and traffic congestion.
Sounds like a tough challenge, but it sure can be done—just ask students and young innovators whose interest in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) education has helped them think of ways to improve how things work in their communities.
This is the kind of interest and creativity that educators and industry leaders want to encourage among today’s youth.
Over the weekend, 43 teams composed of grade school, high school and college students competed in the 3rd Compass Education Robotics STEAM Cup at the SM Seaside, a competition sponsored by Accenture and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
Aside from supporting the participation of seven teams from Cebu, Accenture employees also presented their innovation during the competition for students to get inspiration from, including 25-year-old Krizia Joy Relente and 24-year-old Adrian John Mawe.
Relente’s “do-it-yourself” Robot Hand Passion Project was built from scratch, using storebought supplies worth only about P1,000.
Using a microcontroller kit designed by computer hardware and software company Arduino, Relente said the more sophisticated version of her robot hand prototype has many applications, including transporting materials in high-risk industrial environments, nuclear power plants or mining sites.
“I control the grabber toy with the movement of my fingers using Arduino… Anywhere or anything that requires control, this can be useful,” she shared with Zup.
Mawe, for his part, demonstrated a software that detects the emotions, age and gender of individuals caught in a camera. Among its many other uses, Mawe’s innovation is useful to establishments that want to determine the demographics of their patrons.
With these innovations on display at the Robotics Cup, Compass Education, Accenture and DOST hope many other youngsters can be inspired to be creative and innovative.
“Through STEAM, we want to create that spark of imagination, creativity and collaboration… we also want to see the flame in our children, that they have the desire to learn and do well. And lastly, we want to see them sparkle… it’s when our kids are validated, when they have a platform to be recognized that we see that sparkle. The Robotics Cup serves as a venue where their voice can be heard,” said Ana Martinez-Quijano, founder and managing director of Compass Education, during a press conference hosted by Accenture last Friday.