BAGUIO
CITY-- The trend for future engineers is changing and Baguio’s biggest and
oldest university, Saint Louis University (SLU), is adapting as it geared
towards producing more scientists from the field of engineering.
“It is a high breed
subject. A mixture of technology plus entrepreneurship. We aim to produce a new
breed of engineers come 2024 who are not just thinking of their own technical
expertise but what can the technology do to the community and earn from it,”
said Architect Donna Tabangin, professor at SLU School of Engineering and
Architecture (SEA), the innovator of the SLU Incubator for Research Innovation
and Business (SIRIB) Center during a press conference on Wednesday.
SIRIB is an Ilocano word
which means “intellect”.
The press conference on
Wednesday was also a venue to show the prototype of functional technologies
developed by SEA students through the SIRIB center.
Tabangin said she got
the idea of putting up a SIRIB center when she was on a scholarship at Berkeley
University in California in 2016.
The concept of the SIRIB
center is for students to come up with ideas on technology that will address
actual problems of the community and make a functional prototype at the
Fabrication Laboratory (FabLab) that can be marketed.
The setting up of the
SIRIB center was made possible through a PHP31 million partnership with the
Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)
and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
Cynthia Posadas, Dean of
the School of Engineering and Architecture (SEA) of SLU, said the subject
“Technopreneurship 101” is a mandate of the CHED, mandating a transition to the
K-12 curriculum lowering from five to four years the Engineering program, and
offering the said subject.
“All
engineers who will graduate will have a technopreneurship mindset. While it
does not mean they will all go to the track but as much as possible, that’s
what we're supposed to believe ourselves to the mindset of technopreneurship,
another direction of the career of engineers and architects,” Posadas said.
She added that all
students under the SEA are required to get the three-unit subject composed of
two units lecture, where students will come up with ideas, and one unit
laboratory, where students will make a functional prototype of the idea at the
FabLab.
"It's part of curricula
across all disciplines under the SEA," she said.
By 2024, around 2,000
engineering graduates of SLU are potential scientists and technopreneurs.
There
were six prototypes of technologies that are ready for patenting and
marketing--one of which is the "modified wheelchair”, which has been
developed by Mechatronics Engineering students.
Prince William Lim, a
5th-year Mechatronics Engineering and one of the creators of the modified
wheelchair, said their aim is to make the work of doctors and nurses handling
patients easier.
It is like a wheelchair
that can lift itself to the level of a medical bed to make it easier for a
patient to be transferred.
Lim said the chair can
flatten itself to become a bed, similar to that of a recliner or a foldable
sofa bed.
Lim
added that the prototype would remove the need for carrying patients to either
the chair or their bed.
He said in collaboration
with the Nursing Department of the university, the prototype is still
undergoing further testing.
Another prototype that
is ready for marketing is the “Dupli-Carving machine”.
JC Vincent Aquino, one
of the inventors, said the machine is a collaboration with fellow students the
machine is still manually operated but it helps with increasing the speed, by
which sculptures are made.
It can help mass produce
sculptures and wood-carved items, duplicating or copying an existing, making an
exact copy of the original.
Another prototype is a
technology that can be used in agricultural greenhouses where sensors are
placed and self-assessment of the machine of the dryness of the soil will in
itself water the plants.
The “Modular Drone” was
adapted by Aboitiz company to be used in surveying an area without the need to
deploy personnel to a site, reducing the chance of endangering the safety of
the workers.
Compared to the regular
drone already sold in the market, the students’ prototype is capable of showing
a three-dimensional view of an area, complete with the height of an object,
distance and the geography of the location.
As
the drone is modular, the parts can be replaced easily with updated technology.
The equipment can also be replaced without the need to return it to the manufacturer. (With
a report from Michael Jerome de Guzman/ PNA)
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