The project “Diverse Terrain Wheelchair for senior people and disabled people” by two twelve graders Nguyen Hoang Ngan and Pham Thanh Truc from the Senior High School for gifted students Le Hong Phong in Ho Chi Minh City also won third prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF 2016) held in the US.
This year’s competition attracted approximately 1,800 high-school students from 77 countries and territories worldwide with 1,334 projects. Vietnam has four projects and earned four third prizes. The project “Diverse Terrain Wheelchair for senior people and disabled people” not only impressed the jury board but also caused interests among international students.
The project’s uniqueness is the wheelchair with crawler and utilities can climb ladder and move in complex terrain, giving the safety to elderly people and the disabled; accordingly the jury board decided to award wheelchair project third prize.
Additionally, the project is cheaper than other available products in the market. It costs US$800 while other product each worth US$17,000.
From the thought to help elderly people and disabled people in the country integrating into the community’s activities when the country has no roads special for these people, the two students had spent most of their time making the device.
For one year, the “two young scientists” won from the prize in the national scientific competition to the Intel ISEF 2016, they mutually worked hard from collecting documents about the wheelchairs available in the world to making it true.
Thanh Truc had to read a huge load of documents in English of wheelchairs of the same kind sold in the world and Hoang Ngan spent time designing and understanding more about technique of the wheelchair. They both have time studying for the senior high school graduation examination. At last, their efforts were rewarded when they captured the third prize for the country.
Talking about the competition, Hoang Ngan said that with the theme “THINK BEYOND”, the competition has given the inspiration to all students who love science in the world.
Through partaking in the competition, the two students expected schools in the country should light up passion for science amongst students because students in other countries are offered good condition to do scientific invention from which their science passion is nurtured at early time.
The two students hoped that Senior High School Le Hong Phong will be invested in more to become one of the leading schools in the city in carrying out scientific researches.
