Tony Liaw
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Hong Kong has always recognized the importance of being at the cutting edge of science and technology, a lead it strives for by laying the foundations early in schools.
And that's why the Joint School Science Exhibition is in its 47th year.
This year's theme is "Home: Household Redesigned, Science Redefined," with students encouraged to improve living conditions in an innovative way.
There are many meaningful inventions that can help to save our resources easily - but people tend to ignore them.
One of the impressive entries comes from four girls attending Belilios Public School - Vanessa Woo Sin-tung, Dorothy Lo Tze-yan, Valerie Wan Sze- yu and Zoe Poon Suet-yi.
The Secondary Four students have already won this year's Joint School Science Exhibition Proposal Competition.
Called "Every Drop Counts," they came up with a process to save water.
"In using hot water every day, the first stream of running water is always cold," they said, making it unused and wasted.
By putting a few additional devices and a water tank on the heater, only hot water at a preset temperature will come out of the tap.
The team applied the properties of a thermostat to control the stream of water - the cold water will be redirected by a electric switch to the water tank. And it comes out when only cold water is needed.
The team estimated that the refitted water heater can save at least 3,000 liters per household of water every year.
Another entry comes from Good Hope School's Gianna Lam Tsz-yan, Charlotte Lau Hok-ching, Gigi Yuen Wing-chi and Eunice Kwok Man-huen.
The challenge for them is space, with homes in Hong Kong being so small. So they created the Hanger 360 degrees - a set of storage units which can move up and down controlled by a remote device.
"Our invention aims to improve living conditions by utilizing space effectively," they said.
Besides storage units such as bookshelves and drawers, the system can be turned into a clothing hanger with fans and ultraviolet light installed to keep clothes dry and clean.
Other designs have long been in use in the commercial world - such as water-cooling systems.
The show in the Exhibition Gallery at Hong Kong Central Library in Causeway Bay is due to end today. The public can cast a vote to select the winning school team. The results will be announced tomorrow.
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