Future Scientist in the Making: ASA Exhibition 2022

This May 2022, SPH is back with the 2nd SPH Applied Science Academy (ASA) Exhibition. Over the last three years since the 1st exhibition in 2019, more than 30 projects have been explored and researched. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly been a challenge for most of our students and mentors over the last three years in performing research. Like everyone else, students and mentors are forced to adapt to non-ideal teaching-learning situations and come up with solutions to achieve our goals. It is during these challenging times that we witness the true grit and passion of the students and mentors. We are very excited to share their success stories with you through their research works in this exhibition portfolio. 

SPH Applied Science Academy (ASA) is a research-based learning afterschool program for grade 10-12 students where they work with mentors from universities and research centers in their fields of interest such as renewable energy, biotechnology, computer science, food science, and more. Through the program, we hope students may deepen their passion, broaden their skillsets, and become mature learners while building their scientific portfolios for their college careers. ASA is here to help nurture the next generation of scientists and engineers that cares about the environment and improve livelihood by applying their scientific and engineering skills to solve the world’s problems in the future. 

The Applied Science Academy (ASA) was found to empower and nurture SPH student scientists. This is possible by providing authentic exposure to a research environment for scientific exploration in order to produce young innovators in applied science. To support this program, SPH also provides advanced lab equipment and materials.

This year, ASA is privileged to share the work of 22 of our current students with a combined total of 27 research projects. New mentors are welcomed in the past couple of years with experiences in the fields of renewable energy, remote sensing, and bioinformatics, enhancing the diversity of the research projects in the ASA.  

Some of these works are nearing their completion and students are being prepared for scientific publications. One manuscript has been prepared as pre-prints, with several more coming next. Besides scientific discovery, several students have also managed to reach an important milestone in their projects by demonstrating the proof-of-concept of their apps and systems.

The exhibition, which was being held on from 30 May to 3 June, showcased highly original research works, for example, the study of sea surface temperature and coastline evolution using remote sensing images around the Java islands. Remote sensing is one of the important fields of study in Geospatial Sciences that allow us to track and analyze global environmental conditions through satellite images and datasets. Other students explored new renewable energy harvesting concepts such as the mechanical wave energy harvester that is envisioned to be deployable in ships, cars, bridges, and others. Several students developed Apps to help improve the mental health of students and to provide navigation assistance to visually impaired persons. In biotechnology and food science, students worked on the development of alternative leather from bacterial cellulose, and edible plastics based on Nata de Coco, and explored the development of new biopolymer blends derived from crab shell waste and algae. In robotics and electronics, several students worked on prototyping robotic vehicles, vision diagnostic tools, and organic electronic devices. There are many other exciting topics to be presented in the exhibition. 

This celebration is the fruit of the hard work and commitment from our students and mentors over the last few years. In this opportunity, we also would like to express our gratefulness to our distinguished guest speakers namely Dr. Raden Arthur Ario Lelono, The Director of Talent Management of BRIN as our keynote speaker, Mr. Johan Sulaiman, Business and Technology Executive as our Distinguished Invited Speaker, our honorable guests; the Head of Kemenristekdikti LLDIKTI Wilayah III, Dr. Parisyanti Nurwahdani, and our science expert judges from Pusat Riset Material Maju and Pusat Riset Fotonik BRIN: Dr. Deni Shidqi Khaerudini, Dr. Edi Kurniawan, Dr. Gerald Ensang Timuda, Dr. Isnaeni, Dr. Muhandis Shiddiq, Dr. Nono Darsono, Dr. Oka Pradipta Arjasa, Dr. Sri Rahayu, and Dr. Swasmi Purwajanti.

Click this button below to learn more about the SPH Applied Science Academy (ASA):