The Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Bae Kyung-hoon) and the National Science Museum (Director Lee Eun-young) announced on the 28th that Park Ha-eul, a fifth-grader at Daehyeon Elementary School in Ulsan, has been named the winner of the Presidential Award at the 47th National Student Science Invention Contest, and that Hwang Hyeon-seong, a third-year student at Daejeon Jijok Middle School, has won the Prime Minister’s Award. Entries aimed at solving the everyday inconveniences faced by socially vulnerable people, such as the elderly and people with disabilities, stood out at this year’s contest.
 [코리안투데이] The Presidential Award-winning entry at the 47th National Student Science Invention Contest, ‘A Door Handle That Reads Your Intention and Forgets Your Feet’ © 장형임 기자 |
The Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Science Museum confirmed a total of 299 award winners, including the recipients of the Presidential Award and the Prime Minister’s Award. Held annually since 1979 to nurture students’ creativity and spirit of inquiry and to cultivate future science talent, this year’s contest drew a total of 8,856 students to the city and provincial rounds, with 299 who passed those rounds advancing to the national competition.
Judging was carried out by a panel of 48 experts from academia, research institutions, and the patent field. Led by chair Oh Jun-ho, head of Samsung Electronics’ Future Robot Promotion Team, the panel evaluated entries on criteria such as creativity, inquiry, practicality, effort, and cost-effectiveness.
Park Ha-eul’s Presidential Award-winning entry, titled 「A Door Handle That Reads Your Intention and Forgets Your Feet」, is a door stopper that can fix a door in place using only the hands, without using the feet. Park drew on her experience helping her parents carry delivery boxes, noticing that it is difficult to press a stopper with one’s foot while holding a box, and that foot operation is also inconvenient for the elderly and wheelchair users.
The device is designed so that turning the door handle within about 45 degrees opens the door alone, while turning it about 70 degrees or more lowers a stopper beneath the door. When turned 70 degrees, the rotational motion of the handle is converted into up-and-down linear motion by way of a round toothed wheel called a ‘pinion’ and a straight toothed bar called a ‘rack.’ By using the gear-tooth ratio (1 to 1.5), the stopper operates without any electrical device or sensor. The entry was highly rated because its simple structure and lack of any power requirement make it less prone to malfunction and cheaper to produce, and because all operation takes place at hand height, offering good accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities.
Hwang Hyeon-seong’s Prime Minister’s Award-winning entry, titled 「A Posture-Correcting Wheelchair Using a Conveyor (That Straightens Your Posture When You Reverse)」, originated from watching his maternal grandfather, who has limited mobility, use a wheelchair. When seated in a wheelchair, a person’s hips tend to slide forward, and when a caregiver grabs the upper body and pulls it back to correct this, it strains the caregiver’s back or shoulders. Hwang devised a wheelchair that can correct posture without such a burden.
The key to the entry is that the seat is made to move like a factory conveyor. A rotating shaft, gears, and a chain are installed beneath the seat and connected to the wheelchair’s rear wheels, so that reversing the wheelchair transmits the rotational force of the wheels to the seat through the chain. In this process, the rider’s posture is naturally corrected. To correct the posture of a person weighing 65 kg, directly lifting and pulling them requires the force of lifting a 45.7 kg object, but correcting it by reversing the wheelchair takes only the force of pushing about 3.67 kg, which earned high marks for its potential to prevent musculoskeletal disorders in caregivers and nursing assistants.
Chair of the judging panel Oh Jun-ho shared his assessment, saying, ‘What stood out in this contest were entries in which students captured everyday inconveniences from the perspective of the socially vulnerable and sought to solve them through a shift in thinking and scientific inquiry.’
Beyond these two top prizes, 10 Grand Prizes (ministerial awards from bodies including the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Education), 50 Special Prizes, 100 Excellence Prizes, and 137 Encouragement Prizes were selected. The 299 entries submitted to the national competition will be exhibited at the Future Technology Hall of the National Science Museum until September 5, and the awards ceremony will be held on October 7 at the Science Hall of the National Science Museum.
National Science Museum Director Lee Eun-young said, ‘Even though the students’ work may not have been perfect or dazzling, I found it deeply admirable to see them ask questions in their own way and work hard to solve them. I hope this experience and challenge will become the foundation for them to grow into wonderful scientists in the future.’
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