“Hard work pays off and this trip serves as a true reward for all of us!” said 15-year-old Chen Siyu of Broadrick Secondary School who, together with her teammates, Aminah Hydar and Benjamin Wong Keat Meng, won an all-expenses-paid trip to London to attend the Shell Make The Future Festival after emerging as The Bright Ideas Challenge 2018 National Champions.
The Challenge is a Shell initiative, organised by the Science Centre Singapore and supported by the Ministry of Education, encouraging students to imagine and conceptualise creative ideas to power the cities of the future and show the importance of STEM education in tackling real world problems through a fun and engaging way.
As part of the school’s Applied Learrning Programme (ALP), the students pitched the idea of converting “waste” sound into electricity. Through their research, the students came up with a practical way to convert the vibrational energy of sound into electricity – imagine what a rock concert or football game could do!
Watch as the Broadrick trio explains in this video:
Learning beyond the classroom
In the course of brainstorming, prototyping and trouble-shooting over the 10-week-long project, the students got to know each other better and became better team players and collaborators. They also showed the ability to think on their feet and venture out of their comfort zone (as biology and chemistry students) to make what looks purely like a Physics-based project work.
“During the finals, the team displayed much enthusiasm and strong communication skills as they promoted their idea to members of the public to garner votes and while presenting their bright ideas to a panel of judges,” explained Miss Amanda Rachael De Souza, teacher in-charge of the programme.
For Siyu, this programme has taught her to be more positive and confident of herself.
“I was never one to score straight A’s in school but that did not stop me from aspiring to do well in this challenge. Creativity and innovation is not limited by our academic results and I strongly believe that we just need to be confident to work on that tiny creative spark that is in our minds to make a big difference in our world,” she said.
Likewise, her teammate, Benjamin Wong, a self-pro-claimed introvert who felt that he has grown to be more proactive and outspoken, confident about taking initiative and speaking up.
“While competing with other students from schools all over Singapore, it pushed me to aspire and strive for the best and changed both my mindset and attitude. I used to think that I would never be able to accomplish anything but now I believe I can do anything and everything as long as I try my best and set my mind to it.” said Benjamin.
As for Aminah, she learned to work better in a team and valued the importance of patience and perseverance.
“We had some disagreements, but at the end of the day, we always reconciled and worked things out. It took us months to finish constructing the prototype as everything was built from scratch. Working on the prototype was not easy because our circuit kept breaking and we had to keep trying until the lights finally lit up. We had to be very resilient during this period because we could not give up during the finals,” said Aminah.
Miss De Souza could not agree more that perseverance and persistence were the values that stood out the most in her students throughout the challenge.
“I’m so proud of them! They’ve experienced multiple failures but demonstrated resilience and grit to overcome challenges and rise above it all by redefining their prototype, showcasing the mark of true champions. This was indeed an enriching and eye-opening experience for me as a teacher,” said Miss De Souza.
Congrats to our young innovators!
