PHNOM PENH: After missing a year due to Covid-19, Cambodia’s Aircraft and Technology Expo is finally back. The event is aimed to present aircraft, tech products of students/talents and inspire Cambodian youths and talents specialised in Aircraft and Technology with their achievements and robotic/technology/mechanical/coding products to the public. The annual event, organised since 2018 is supported by the Cambodian Air Force and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, and in cooperation with Helistar.
The Air & Tech Show is in its third edition, taking place between 17 and 19 of December at the Pochentong Air Base, in Phnom Penh.
Students of schools from all over the country have joined together bringing different ideas and inventions under the same roof. The youth was excited to see big airplanes and helicopters provided by the Cambodian Air Force as an initiative to inspire new pilots and engineers in the Kingdom.
Another big attraction it’s the robot competition, consisted of a race in which the robots needs to complete certain tasks in order to win, such as carrying a box or crossing the pitch in the fastest time.
EAC News has interviewed some of the students who are participating in the robot competition.
Kim Vathanak, student of NGS Preah Sisowath has stated:
“We are from New Generation Schook of Preah Sisowath and we are building this robot due to the event of Air & Tech show, about this event they demand us to make the robot pick the box and shoot the ball. The fashion of this robot is that it can walk, sit, crouch and run, walk faster than usual.”
“It took us like two months to build it. We have faced a lot of problems but it worked out well.”
Pisoth Yi, is another student of NGS Preah Sisowath. He shared with EAC News his worries about the robot competition: “The Air & Tech Show is an event which is created in order to encourage Cambodian students to learn more aircrafts and other new technologies such as robotics.”
“For the competition in this afternoon, we are feeling quite nervous, but we will do our best in the competition”.
But the Air & Tech Show has many more inventions to offer, some of them ideas that combine social necessities and promotion of science. The students of the group titled Ninja Battambang, for example, have produced the automatic machine hand sanitizer, but made out of lego pieces. They believe the lego material can excite children to try building their own inventions.
Paulen Chhun, student of Preah Monivong High School has introduced his invention:
“Hello, we are from Battambang. Our group name is Ninja Battambang, we made our invention from lego. We also use the lego to inspire kids to make sure they have the ability to build it like us in the future.”
“This one is the automatic hand sanitizer. Actually, we have seen this many time in the supermarket, but we barely know what is inside. So right now, we take the lego, the stuff that kid uses to play. We take that and we recreate so we got a newer version and we can see what is inside. Actually here is the ultra-sonic sensor which is used to detect the motion and connects to the brick and the brick will automatically fire the motor and the gel will come out.”
“The second one here is the arduenol, it’s like the robot arm inspired in Marvel cinematic universe from Iron-Man because my friend saw that. It’s interesting to recreate them. This is just a prototype but we can also use it in some factories that produce some dangerous stuff so it can prevent the people there from something dangerous.”
Another invention is a robot aimed to facilitate delivery of products, specially during the new normal, in which Covid-19 and its variants sets the people to practice social distancing.
Kea Sunpanha, student of Santhormuk High School, said his project it’s called delivery project. It has a lot of functions, by using the remote control, have ID Scan to scan, have headlight, turn signal light, inserting door, like if we want to buy something we can use this to put money to the seller.
We have a light camera, speaker to connect with the camera, we have a 4000-milliwatt battery and have a little bit of sensor.”
“My purpose of making this I want to, this is a covid-19 season. I want to make social distancing. We can buy something that we don’t need to buy. We just stay at home, using phone or laptop and we can control the remote with this card to buy something for you.”
While some students have focused in inventions to easy daily life on earth, others are aiming higher into the sky with their rockets, or developing their own self-carried drone, such as the students from NPIC, which EAC News had an exclusive interview before.
The Air & Tech Show is aimed to promote and develop science and technology by all students from all over the country. From robots, rockets, drones and environmental technologies, all researchers here are working for solutions. Last year, the pandemic has cancelled the event. But now, more than ever, all students in the Air & Tech Show are looking forward for a bright future.
