Youths showcase inventions at NYIA

In the coastal area of Ujungbulu in South Sulawesi, many local residents depend on coconut trees for their livelihoods, but lack safe tools to open them with.

Coconuts, despite their commercial and nutritious benefits, often frustrate the local community. Their hard-shelled husks are hard to break open, forcing some people to use machetes or crowbars, putting them at risk of injury.

However, a new breakthrough made by three creative students from SMAN 1 Bulukamba high school may help people open coconuts more easily and safely.

M. Asfar Syafar, A. Uswah and Nurfadillah Hanafi recently invented a smart device that brought them to the final round of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences’ (LIPI) 2010 3rd National Young Inventor Awards (NYIA) on Thursday in Jakarta.

The group created a T-shaped steel lever around 1.5 meters long, complete with cog wheels and steel blades.

You just need to put the coconuts on one of the sharpened ends, and this will remove the coconut husk and crack open the coconut,¡ Nurfadillah told The Jakarta Post.

Nurfadillah said she had been inspired to invent the tool after witnessing a friend of hers injuring his chest while attempting to cut open a coconut.

´Young people there often don’t know how to open coconuts properly. So, we were thinking about ways to create a safer tool to open them,¡ she said.

However, the design team from SMAN 1 Bulukamba high school were unfortunately not selected as the winners.

More than 15 teams of finalists from regions across the archipelago including Padang in West Sumatra, Palembang in South Sumatra, Aikmel in West Nusa Tenggara, and Yogyakarta competed against each other for the awards.

On Thursday, LIPI named Andreas Diga, Ikhsan Brillianto, and Ahmed Reza from SMAN 1 Yogyakarta senior high school as winners of the 2010 National Young Inventors Award. 

These three young men invented a plasma-generator device to reduce motorcycle emissions and cut air pollution.

´The device essentially comprises small, yet simple propeller blades and a generator that are placed at the end of a motorcycle muffler,¡ Ikhsan said.

He added exhaust would spin the propeller, which in turn would drive the generator to produce electricity. 

Ikhsan said this process would bind particles causing pollution in the exhaust, and reduce gas emissions.

Dr. Deddy Setiapermana of LIPI, who is also the chairman of the NYIA committee, said the awards were aimed at appreciating and tapping into the innovative potential and creativity of young people between eight and 18 years old, throughout Indonesia.

This year, the competition had received 191 entries, which were narrowed down to 151 teams in the semifinal, Deddy said. However, only 15 teams, comprising more than 30 students combined, made it through to the final round on Thursday.

The 2010 NYIA winners will be sent to represent Indonesia at the 2010 International Exhibition of Young Inventors, which will be held from Dec. 16-18 in Hanoi, Vietnam, Deddy said.

Eddy Yuristo, Reijefki Irlastua, and Priyanka from SMAN 17 Palembang senior high school in South Sumatra were named runners up, for their invention called the ´rotating herbicide sprayer¡ to minimize pesticide use. (tsy)

Jakarta Post, 10/22/2010