NTU Live it Up #1: Event Coverage

Recently, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) organised the “Live it Up! - Bringing Engineering to Life” exhibition at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre. As part of our coverage of the event, Project BioLogical will be bringing to you an exclusive set of 3 articles on the event. We will first provide a general overview of the event, before delving into one of the event’s insightful workshops. Finally, in the coming weeks, we will listen to the voices of the various exhibitors at the event.

About the Event

Throughout the 3 days, exhibition booths were set up by NTU students, as well as its partners from various industry players and polytechnic students from Singapore’s five polytechnics (Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP), Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP), Republic Polytechnic (RP), Singapore Polytechnic (SP), Temasek Polytechnic (TP)). At these booths, the exhibitors shared about their various science research projects (for the students) or their companies (for the industry partners). Interactive activities were also provided for participants to try out at some of the booths, including a virtual racing car simulator and a treadmill which could convert its kinetic energy to electrical energy to be stored. For those who wanted some hands-on experience, they could participate in a wide variety of workshops organised across the 3 days (see our write-up on the NTU Smart Vital Sign Monitoring Workshop for more details ).

The exhibition hall was divided into 4 sections. The Grow Zone hosted all the industry partners at the event, while the student presenters put up their exhibition booths at the other 3 zones.

We approached the exhibition hall in a clockwise manner, starting with the Love Zone before ending at the Grow Zone and stage area.

Zone 1: Love Zone

This zone’s name refers to a “love” for the environment. Hence, the projects exhibited here were centred around sustainability and protecting the environment. At this section, we were able to observe the use of algae bioreactors for carbon dioxide removal, and learnt about how collagen could be extracted from bullfrog skins for various products. If you would like to learn more about these two projects, they will be featured in our special interview article as the third part to this article series.

Other projects that this zone featured include a dynamo cycling station where visitors could pedal on the treadmill for their kinetic energy to be converted to electrical energy for storage, and a booth demonstrating how black soldier flies could be Singapore’s (and the world’s) next solution to food waste.

Zone 2: Play Zone

Innovation was the key tenet of the booths in the play zone, with a large majority of exhibitions focusing on automation and technology (including drones, Virtual / Augmented Reality and robots). In this area, we were treated to displays of virtual driving simulators, a robotic arm capable of drawing on whiteboards and a drone showcase. Of particular interest to us was an AR simulation of an industrial distillation process done by NTU.

As Dr Poernomo Gunwaran explained, the industrial distillation process set-up is too bulky and space-consuming (spanning a few storeys tall) to be built on campus, leaving chemical engineering students with limited practical experience with the set-up. He then coded a distillation process set-up for these students to experience it within the safer (and more convenient) confines of the classroom.

In an industrial distillation process, the liquid mixture is fed into the distillation set up in the middle of the distilling column with decreasing temperature from the bottom to the top of the distillation column as shown.

The substance with a lower boiling point (in this case, ethanol), will tend to move upwards in the distillation column to be collected, while the substance with a higher boiling point (in this case, water) will tend to move downwards in the distillation column. Over multiple cycles of this process, the distillate collected at the top of the distillation set-up would become increasingly pure in ethanol.

With this theory in mind, NTU students would then be able to modify the conditions used in this distillation set-up to observe how changing the variables in the simulation (for example, the initial concentration of ethanol in the solution mixture, and the reflux rate which is the rate at which condensed distillate at the top of the column is recycled into the distillation set-up) would affect the percentage yield of the ethanol collected. In addition, an alarm system is also in-built into the distillation simulation to notify the student if the corresponding yield of ethanol being collected is outside the acceptable range.

This teaching tool has helped NTU students visualise and understand the mechanics of industrial distillation, aiding the process of designing industrial processes. In future, Dr Gunwaran hopes to incorporate Augmented Reality onto the iPad version of the simulation. He also believes that this simulation can help working chemical engineers design their industrial chemical processes as well.

Zone 3: Eat Zone

The name “Eat Zone” is rather self-explanatory for the exhibitions housed here. Most, if not all the booths here are related to consumables, whether it be an automated snack dispenser, fish food or an urban farming system. In fact, NTU’s kimchi and kombucha making workshop was also held at this zone.

Zone 4: Grow Zone

Unlike the previous 3 zones, exhibitions in this zone were mainly done by industry players, including the likes of A*STAR and SP Group. At these booths, we were able to get a glimpse into the STEM related work in these companies. Here, we were fortunate to talk to CTRL-SHIFT, A*STAR and Revital as we learnt about their motivations and aspirations in STEM (which we will feature in the interviews article, so stay tuned for that).

Talks

In addition, some distinguished speakers, including Founder of Straits Agriculture Mr Leonard Teo and Michael Fam Chair Professorship in Food Science and Technology Prof Chen Wei Ning, William from NTU, gave insightful presentations at the event on topics including food security. We were able to listen in to snippets of both talks, where both speakers highlighted the importance of innovation to secure Singapore’s food supply and referenced Singapore’s 30 by 30 goal. Mr Teo, in particular, mentioned hydroponics on Housing Development rooftops as a viable solution to increase local food production.

Conclusion

Throughout our time there, we were treated to various ways science and technology was being applied in for both educational and practical purposes. From the development of new materials to enhancing student’s practical understanding of the content taught to them by their university lecturers.

Ultimately, this event was a meaningful sneak peek into the inner workings of scientific research in NTU and beyond, as well as its future direction towards creating a brighter and more sustainable future for us all.

References:

1. https://www.ntu.edu.sg/engineering/live-it-up-bringing-engineering-to-life

2. https://dr.ntu.edu.sg/entities/person/Chen-Wei-Ning-William