A fresh insight into the surrounding world would bring creativity. Mobile phones and the Internet become a vital part of our everyday life but they are not with us from the beginning. Due to the mobile internet and IoT (Internet of Things), we are now entering to the era of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) not only in Korea but all over the world. Through his book ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’, Klaus Schwab, the cofounder of World Economic Forum, underlines that the 4th industrial revolution will be coming soon and that it will have a significant effect on our life such as economy, business, government, society and individual. And he points out drones, 3D printing, robotics, physics based on novel materials, new digital platforms, and biology enabling the gene activation and genome editing as the mega-trends of the 4th industrial revolution. Many governments in the world try to gain a competitive edge over these new technologies and increase their economic power. So they focus on developing tech-savvy human resources and attracting talented people around the world.
In that sense, the 38th national student’s science invention competition, which was held from July 14th to August 9th, is a good opportunity to peek into the idea and skill of Korean young scientists. Among 105,810 inventions which were submitted to qualifying round of city and province, only 310 inventions were selected for final round in the five area of science of life Ⅰ, science of life Ⅱ, studying item, science toy, and recycling. Even though some of them lack practicality and depth of research, many inventions, having their own creativities, keep pace with global technical trends like self-driving car, Paypal and Samsung pay, and health/bio technology. Inventions like safety control algorithm for preventing collisions of autopilot car, mobile payment system using a vibration bell, ear blood pressure gauge using variable springs, and germ remover for flowers using lactobacillus has attracted people’s attentions.
Sumin Jo, a student of Korean Minjok Leadership Academy, invents ‘Safety control algorithm for preventing collisions of autopilot car based on longitudinal distance sensor’ based on the fact that most collisions of Google’s self-driving car are made because it does not establish a safe distance of front and side. She installed ultrasonic sensors on a model car and made arduino source code using C language based algorithm. The results of experiments confirm that the model car moves without a crash, securing a safe distance.
Also, most people would feel uncomfortable when they are trying to order or pay at a restaurant or at a cafe because many people have to wait so long for the waiter. To solve that problem, Seoyoung Choi from Kangwon Science High School proposes the system where you can order and pay at the table right away. Also she makes payment in cash, credit card, and NFC like Samsung pay possible.
When the Go games were held between Sedol Lee, a Korean master Go player and AlphaGo and Pockemon Go became so popular around the world, many people and media outlets said that Korea also should prepare for the future technology and make the society in favor of scientists and engineers. However, it has been well known that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs could open the era of new IT with their computer technologies because they were exposed to new technologies easily and US society supported their engineers and scientists to enhance its technical power. In that way, to increase Korean young students’ attentions to technologies, this national student’s science invention competition should be more vitalized and much efforts need to done for this competition to be widely known.
Lee Juhyeon
Grade 10th
Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies