The journey to conquer the National Science and Technology Competition of Nghe An students

Turn ideas into reality

Tran Duc Manh - a student of class 12A2 was the first to come up with the idea. Manh said that the idea came to him when he watched a weather forecast program, which reported that the air in big cities was polluted, with a high proportion of fine and ultra-fine dust: One of the factors causing pollution and seriously affecting human health is fine and ultra-fine dust, the main cause of which comes from industrial emissions and vehicles. At that time, I simply thought of how to have a device to suck up fine dust in the air to reduce pollution - Manh recounted.

From this thought, when Le Viet Thuat High School launched the Science Creative Ideas Competition, this male student boldly developed the idea and unexpectedly won the first prize at the school level. As a member of the jury, teacher Le Minh Triet found this to be a good idea, with creativity and decided to accompany Manh to launch the Provincial Science and Technology Competition. During the implementation process, the project had a second member, Le Nam Truong (class 11A). Later, Truong was the person in charge of programming and researching to complete the sensor part of the machine.

Before starting the implementation, the group of authors also researched vacuum cleaners on the market and found that the current machines mainly use one of two methods of filtering fine dust: Hepa filter or electrostatic filter. However, these two filtering methods both have some disadvantages such as high cost, high energy consumption and filters that need to be changed frequently, causing a lot of inconvenience and expense.

To overcome this limitation, the group of authors decided to research the project "Multi-purpose fine dust filter using adhesion and centrifugation technology" - this is a new technology and not yet available on the market. This is also the group's challenge during the research process and both said that they failed and changed the design many times. Along with that, many improvements and innovations based on the knowledge learned were born with the aim of increasing outstanding performance such as: Ionization grid, multi-layer dust separation block.

After about 9 months of research, design, manufacturing and testing, the group of authors achieved the following results: manufacturing a fine and ultra-fine dust filter (PM2.5, PM10, PM1.0) with an efficiency of about 80% using new technology to optimize costs (about 10% compared to old technology) and convenient in cleaning and maintenance.

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At first, I planned to create a fine dust filter for the traffic road, but the range was too large, not feasible. Or when using an ion electrode generator to vacuum dust, the force was too weak and the machine's efficiency was almost 0%. After research, we came up with a way to create an ionizer in the form of an electrode grid. The ion grid consists of steel wires connected to the output terminals of a high-voltage module made of metal, arranged alternately, 1.5 cm apart.

The School also proposed the idea of ​​using bonding technology to turn fine dust into dust particles of different sizes and shapes. Through the process of exchanging and researching with each other, we finally decided on the final solution which is bonding and centrifugation technology. The goal is to turn fine dust particles into dust particles of larger size and mass and separate them from the dust-gas mixture, taking clean air out.

Student Tran Duc Manh

Accompanying the students during the implementation process, teacher Le Minh Triet said that the entire process of researching and creating the vacuum cleaner was 100% the students' work. He only supported the location, research space, and analyzed the feasibility or infeasibility of the solutions.

In addition, during the process of making the machine, if there are tasks that are too much for the students, the teacher will contact a mechanic to help them, such as cutting metal and welding.

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Actually, the knowledge in the project is all in the textbooks and is not too esoteric. Manh himself is a good student in Physics so he has a good grasp of the theory and can apply it quite well in practice.

As for Truong, he is a studious student, he has researched a lot of documents related to this field, so he has a lot of creativity in the practical process. During the process of working with the students, I highly appreciate their diligence, hard work, passion, creativity, ability to work independently, and high self-awareness.

Teacher Le Minh Triet

Be confident in being yourself

With investment and enthusiasm, when the project is completed, teachers and students of Le Viet Thuat High School set a goal to:Science and Technology Competitionprovincial level. So, when they received the news that the contest would not be held, all three were disappointed and regretful.

Later, when the Department of Education and Training organized a project evaluation to select candidates for the national competition, Truong and Manh did not believe that their product would be selected and the results were "beyond expectations".

Adding to this, student Tran Duc Manh added: I set a goal to enter Hanoi University of Science and Technology and bet on this competition hoping to win a second prize at the provincial level, which would be the basis for direct admission. However, we never thought of a national competition and felt very happy when this was one of the three projects that passed the provincial qualifying round.

According to teacher Le Minh Triet, from the time of receiving the results of the Department's assessment round to completing the application for the national competition, teachers and students only had nearly 1 month to prepare.

Therefore, while many other projects may have more time and conditions to consult universities and experts, the project of Le Viet Thuat High School students is completely "homegrown".

Near Tet, when the application deadline was only a few days away, all three "camped" at the instructor's house, editing, processing, and filming themselves to complete the product.

Teachers and students also admitted that, compared to provincial-level products, national-level competition products were not "upgraded" much, but were mainly edited in appearance to look "more presentable".

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I think that, among the projects participating in the national competition this year, our project is probably the one with the least investment and does not have the conditions to be taken care of in terms of design and image. On the contrary, we are confident because this is a product made by the students themselves, from idea, design to completion.

Teacher Le Minh Triet

With the above "special" thing, when coming to the National Science and Technology Competition, although quite "overwhelmed" compared to many other teams, Manh and Truong were still comfortable and quite confident in their products. "The Science and Technology Competition gathered many projects that were invested in carefully and systematically, and there were projects that coincided with our ideas. However, the above project used old technology, different from the project we are doing" - Truong recounted.

Before entering the final round, the group of authors from Le Viet Thuat High School said they had encountered some unfortunate incidents. Specifically, although the product was carefully packaged after being transported to Ho Chi Minh City, upon arriving and unpacking the package, the group discovered that the parts of the dust filter were damaged. In order to prepare for the opening ceremony, the three teachers and students stayed up almost a night in the hotel to fix it.

Entering the official competition round, the pressure was quite heavy on Manh and Truong when both had to answer many questions from the judges: We had about 10 minutes to present the product, but after only presenting half of it, the judges started asking questions about the implementation process. Then, continuously throughout the day, we would have different judges "accidentally" visit the exhibition booth and would ask any question.

Not being able to witness the students' performance, but standing outside the exhibition area, teacher Le Minh Triet said that he was very optimistic, because he knew that every "nook and cranny" of the students' product was very clear and very solid because it was done by the students themselves. The biggest regret of the 3 teachers and students was probably that the English question that the judges asked them was not prepared in time.

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I could listen and understand the questions but I could not present them in English because there were too many technical terms. Later, I regretted knowing that only a few projects were of interest to the judges and they asked questions in English.

Student Le Nam Truong

With confidence, the project "Multi-purpose fine dust filter using adhesion and centrifugal technology" of teachers and students of Le Viet Thuat High School was awarded the third prize nationwide by the jury and is one of the few projects of Nghe An students to win an official prize in this playground.

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For many years, the science and technology competition at our school has received a lot of attention and has been held in many rounds with the goal of students being trained in reporting skills, answering questions, and gaining experience through each round to perfect products with the best quality.

We are also very happy, because with this solution, in recent years the school has had projects selected for the national competition. Although the prize is not high, for us it is an encouragement, the result of many efforts of teachers and students. This is also the motivation for the school's students to continue to strive, promote creativity and demonstrate passion for scientific research, turning lessons from books into practice.

Teacher Thai Phuong Chi - Vice Principal of Le Viet Thuat High School