Innovation from Everyday Things

Innovation begins with the spark of an idea.

Students at The School of St Jude have been demonstrating this since the first Science Day Projects Exhibition in 2010.

Science Day is an annual event that has been held at Smith Campus for the past 10 years. This year, the event took place for the first time at St Jude’s Girls' Secondary School to motivate girls to be more active in participating in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.

"Extraordinary inventions have been presented at Science Day by some of our best students," notes Mr Shaban, Science Day chairman of both Smith and Girls' campuses.

"Students use everyday items from school such as plastic bottles, cardboards, etc. However, we do support the students in other ways such as providing them with electronic devices so they can demonstrate their projects more efficiently," he adds.

"Science Day is important to these students because it motivates them to enjoy STEM subjects. It helps them put theory into practice. As an example, one student built a transformer using gas that worked," explains Mr Shaban.

In this year's exhibition, 97 project entries were registered for the competition.

Gideon partnered with his classmate Rashid, both Form 2 students, to create their project called Automatic Secured Agriculture Controller. “This is my second time to win. The first time I won is when I was in Standard 7.”

Describing how the software functions work, "The unique thing about this project is that it provides security and controls agriculture activities such as chemical application and automated drying of crops."

These are impressive functionalities that would be very beneficial to Tanzania’s large population of agricultural industries and small-scale farmers.

Winners of the Science Fair are chosen from different categories - science, arts and design, mathematics, geography, biology, chemistry, and ICT.

Debora, a Form 4 science student, was this year's winner from St Jude’s Girls' Secondary Campus.

Taking the top prize in the ICT category, Debora’s project, The Use of Mobile Network in Controlling Road Accidents, has been chosen to participate in the national competition.

“This project is meant to save lives by preventing traffic accidents,” she explains.

"I used various materials to design the project, including ultrasonic sensors to measure distances between cars, different jump wires, and sim card connections, as well as cardboard and bottle tops to demonstrate the concept," she further describes.

"I am truly thrilled that the project has been accepted to compete at the national level. So I'm trying hard to make some adjustments and modify the project so I can bring home the prize. We would also like to incorporate an alcohol detection sensor into the system,” Deborah excitedly says.

Mr Matotola is a mentor to science and ICT projects. He also coordinates the Science Day.

“Five projects from the Science Day have been selected to compete at the national level this year. One of them is Debora's project. So it’s truly exciting!,” says Mr Matotola.

“Girls are always eager to learn. We would like to see more girls interested in STEM subjects, so holding the Science Day on their campus will skew them in that direction," he enthusiastically remarks.

In this year's Science Day, 57% of girls participated, compared to 43% of boys. This shows how girls were driven and are ready to innovate incredible projects.

Every year, students present new creative, innovative and technological ideas at Science Day. St Jude's promotes creativity and encourages students to create projects that will benefit their communities to lift them out of poverty and improve their quality of life.