Young people are exploring science
On the 23rd of January, the school stage of the E(x)plory Scientific Festival was held at the Student Creativity Centre, which was organized by the Academic Secondary Comprehensive School of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice. Five teams presented their projects.
E(x)plory is the largest competition for young innovators aged 13-20 in Poland, which supports the creation of projects in the fields of science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (#STEAM). Each submitted project pursues at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which allows participants to contribute to solving the most important global challenges. The school stage of the E(x)plory festival is a part of the nationwide competition.
- This festival is taking place in our school for the second time - says the Director of ALO SUT (Academic Secondary Comprehensive School) in Gliwice, Dr Małgorzata Borysławska. - We notice in our students their desire to explore the world. This event means that young people have their own stage where they can present projects and also gather very valuable experience in presenting scientific research.
- Four years ago, students came to me and told me about this festival and that they wanted to take part in it with their project. We decided to go to Gdynia and there we met people with great passion and ideas. It was a great way to exchange experiences on different levels. The whole event was accompanied by a lot of energy. Therefore, together with Dr Małgorzata Szymaszek, we organize a school festival in which we also have students from primary schools, in order to encourage them to conduct their own experiments already at this stage – explains a teacher at the Academic Secondary Comprehensive School of the Silesian University of Technology.
On that day, the jury composed of Dr Hab. Eng. Robert Czerwiński, Prof. of Silesian University of Technology (Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Computer Science), Dr Hab. Eng. Joanna Michalska-Serwin Prof SUT (Faculty of Chemistry), Dr Hab. Eng. Małgorzata Musztyfaga-Staszuk Prof SUT (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering,) and Dr Eng. Łukasz Czeszowic (Grupa Azoty Kędzierzyn) evaluated five projects and posters. The level was very high, which is why the Jury had a difficult task. Projects of secondary and primary school pupils concerned, among others, air monitoring in the immediate area, energy sources, or a personal sensor of threats in the environment.
Finally, Błażej Korzekwa, a pupil of the first class of ALO SUT in Gliwice with the project “Aero-Haptics: Multimodal IoT system in DBI architecture supporting anti-smoking therapy” won.
The aim of the project is to create and test an innovative device that monitors the air quality in the smoker’s room and delivers personalized digital messages. An innovation in the multisensor is the detection of cigarette smoke based on the fusion of physical data. The system works in a passive way – it does not require any intervention or manipulation by the user (unlike the mobile or smartwatch applications available on the market). This is to passively increase the smoker’s awareness of the harmful effects of smoking on the environment and motivate him to change his behaviour to health-promoting ones. Personalized real-time messages based on air quality data provided by the device will reduce the average daily number of cigarettes smoked by the subject.
- This is a fully original idea of the pupil. Błazej developed it from the very beginning and only informed me that he would like to do something like this. The inspiration for him was a close person who has a problem with this addiction, and he would like to help her in this way. I was very impressed - explains Dr Magdalena Danek.
The winning project will take part in the next stage, which will take place online and will fight for a trip to the main festival in Gdynia.
On that day, as part of the school festival, all participants were presented with science clubs (among which there were many graduates of ALO in Gliwice), soap workshops and also a show of the Student Science Club of Chemists. The award also went to ALO pupils in Gliwice: Lena Nowak, Teresa Gandor and Piotr Opała, who received a diploma from the hands of MSc Eng. Elżbieta Jarguz from the Association of Chemical Industry Engineers and Technicians for taking first place in the competition for the best poster conducted at the 23rd National Scientific and Technical Conference “ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION. Science and Industry to protect the Earth.” The title of their work is: “Chemistry of smell – development of natural candles and diffusers in the Politechnika project.”
