Last year, Zion STEM students conducted their annual Capstone Project, completing their final requirement for Senior High School. Here, students are expected to conduct experiments and apply concepts learned from their STEM education experience. It seemed like there were endless possibilities to explore. Then, disaster struck: what started as a small outbreak soon grew into a pandemic. With the corresponding restrictions, the laboratory equipment that was once at the students’ fingertips slipped away, and everyday items soon took its place. While everything was once so accessible, the things—otherwise taken for granted—were no more.
Due to the pandemic, various issues hindered research efforts. Students faced both logistical barriers and accessibility issues when it came to acquiring the necessary equipment. These obstacles that lie in the way may sow seeds of discouragement. Yet we must realize that it is constraints that give rise to innovation in the first place. We interviewed three students who managed to rise above the circumstances and show brilliant feats of creativity through their Capstone Projects. In doing so, their barriers, instead of hindering them, gave rise to wonders and interesting insights.
The most innovative capstone project award was given to Kate Abigail Hao Lin, whose paper focused on the efficacy of bay (Laurus nobilis) leaf as a larvicide (larvae pesticide). Like most of us, she was not a big fan of mosquitos. Inspiration struck her one day when she saw a UV light in her house and some garden plants outside. Abby suggested, “Look around you for inspiration.”
Yet, the glaring problem for Abby was that she was unable to order mosquito eggs and laboratory equipment due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, this did not cause her to back down. With resourcefulness, creativity, and some copper and rubber tubes, she made her own makeshift steam distiller from a pressure cooker and hatched her own mosquito eggs. It was no surprise that she won the award for the most innovative research paper. When asked how she managed to come up with all these ideas, she replied, “Go crazy with your imagination! Let your mind wander, and don’t dismiss ideas until you’ve really looked into them.”
Kenneth Tan, another student, noticed the harm of excessive waste and its relation to global warming. Recently, lots of initiatives with regards to waste mitigation have been undertaken. However, “Instead of eliminating waste,” thought Kenneth, “why not make use of it?” As such, his paper focused on extracting biodiesel from potato-fried vegetable oil. He reasoned that, sometimes, you often don’t have to solve an issue directly; instead, you can look at it from a different perspective. He said that we must learn to maximize our resources and improvise those we do not.
The last interviewee, Ralde Bautista, wanted to gauge and maximize student productivity from their homes. Initially, he attempted to optimize certain factors such as temperature and brightness in their rooms. However, he had to improvise when the pandemic meant that he could not send testing kits to his participants. His project transformed to coding his mobile application that uses your phone’s sensor to measure variables such as light and temperature in the room and give appropriate suggestions to the user for optimal productivity based on these data points.
Learning how to code, as well as programming the application, were challenging and impressive feats. Despite Ralde’s lack of experience in coding and the fact that creating mobile applications is not taught in our curriculum, he was able to take advantage of the Internet to help him get through the learning curve. By embracing a mindset of taking things one step at a time, Ralde was able to keep himself going until the end. In the future, he plans on making the app simpler to use and more accessible for the public.
Despite the countless challenges along the way—Abby, Kenneth, and Ralde, to name a few, conceived impressive capstone papers that rose above the challenges and exceeded expectations, showcasing innovation despite various limitations.
To end, here are some parting tips given by the interviewees:
Abby: “Think of the impossible, then think of ways to make it possible.”
Kenneth: “Innovation does not necessarily have to be something totally novel. You often don’t have to pressure yourself to find something totally new.”
Ralde: “Always have the end goal in mind.”
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