Central students create automatic flood warning machine

Originating from the fact that their hometown is often flooded every time there is heavy rain, three students from Dang Dung Secondary School (Sia town, Quang Dien district, Thua Thien Hue province) created an automatic flood warning machine.

The three excellent students are Hoang Xuan Bao (15 years old), Pham Quoc Dat (14 years old) and Le Thi Thu Huong (14 years old).

Starting from the fact that floods have left many consequences for people's lives, especially local people, 3 students surveyed and learned about water levels and flood warning levels at hydrological stations and upstream reservoirs to develop ideas for an automatic flood warning system.

Pham Quoc Dat, one of three students who invented the "automatic flood warning machine", is reviewing documents about this meaningful model.

In early 2015, the group of secondary school students mentioned above came up with ideas, discussed and implemented them together with the support of two teachers in the school, Mr. Ha Phong (Art teacher) and Mr. Ho Tan Chu (Math teacher).

After school hours, taking advantage of their free time, the three students gathered at school to discuss and make products. It took them more than a year to form ideas, choose suitable materials and create the product. To cover the cost of production, the students received support from the school and teachers. After completion, the product only cost about 500,000 VND.

Pham Quoc Dat said that the biggest difficulty the students faced was time. They had limited time because they had to go to school and some equipment was not available, so they had to make it themselves or ask the teacher for help. In addition, because they did not have much knowledge about installing electrical circuits, the group also had to ask for help from electricians.

The automatic flood warning machine model has many parts such as a model frame made of mica, a float, a homemade magnetic induction switch, etc. Of which, the most important part is the radio transmitter used to receive warning signals to other local stations or people to take timely preventive measures.

The exterior of the “Automatic Flood Alarm” model.

The model will operate on the principle that when the water level in the rivers rises, the rectangular buoy fixed in the positioning frame will rise accordingly. The positioning frame will be equipped with three homemade magnetic switches corresponding to the three local flood warning levels: alarm 1, alarm 2, alarm 3.

The float is equipped with a permanent magnet to attract and close the magnetic switches at each corresponding level. At this time, the timer will operate (it will automatically turn off at the appropriate alarm time to save electricity). At the same time, the speaker system is equipped with an FM frequency signal transceiver system to emit radio frequency signals.

The important parts are located inside the positioning frame.

The district’s central flood warning stations will be equipped with a frequency receiving system (which can be a radio, telephone or frequency detecting computer) to report to each local station in the communes and towns. Each alarm level is designed to be connected to an audio system including a siren and a corresponding warning sound.

“The advantage of this model is that the system can be maintained during a power outage thanks to a backup power source through a magnetic switch installed in parallel with the main power source. When the main power source is cut off, the sensor switch will automatically turn on the backup power source for use,” said Hoang Xuan Bao.

With the automatic flood warning machine, the product of 3 students won the second prize in the contest "Youth and Children's Creativity of Thua Thien Hue Province in 2016".

Mr. Ho Tan Chu, a Math teacher at Dang Dung Secondary School, shared: “Seeing the students’ passion and coming up with great topics, we immediately supported and helped. This is a completely new model in our country. The investment capital for the product is not large, and the cost is cheap.”

The students also said that if they have the conditions and time, the group will develop the model further to be able to put that information on the internet through an online flood reporting website. At that time, the received signal will be encoded and continuously displayed parameters to be able to notify people on many channels, helping people to be more proactive in flood prevention.

Mr. Do Xuan Long, Principal of Dang Dung Secondary School, said that the students' model is very meaningful. If applied in practice, it will help people raise their vigilance and proactively prevent floods.

"The students' topics have been sent by the province to the Ministry of Science and Technology to participate in this year's National Youth and Children's Creativity Contest," Mr. Long informed.

Continuous flooding in the Central region, Hue in general and Quang Dien district in particular, has motivated a group of students from Dang Dung Secondary School to create an automatic flood warning machine to help people and localities.

According to Dantri