A student team from the Diploma in Environmental Management & Water Technology (DEWT) consisting of Siow Wei Xuan, Kevin Kum Yew Kang, Huo Meixi and ‘Ainul Mardiyyah Bte Anwar participated in the Polytechnic Student Research Project 2014 and won the BEST 5 Projects Award (from each Polytechnic). The award was presented by Professor Cheong Hee Kiat, President of SIM University, at Temasek Polytechnic on 13 March 2014. The Polytechnic Student Research Programme (PSRP) was initiated by Mr Peter Chen, former Senior Minister of State for Education, and launched by NTU in July 1997 with funding support from the NSTB (now A*STAR). The objective of the programme is to nurture local polytechnic students in R&D through an immersion in the scientific and engineering research environment.
The project entitled “Innovative Route to Remove Organic Arsenic using Functionalised Polymeric Beads” was a collaboration between School of ABE and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NUS. The work was jointly supervised by Dr Handojo Djati Utomo (SP) and A/P Paul J Chen and Dr Narahari Mahanta of NUS. This project was initiated by Dr Handojo by linking a Final Year Project and Industrial Training at t-lab of NUS. During the industrial training, the team leader, Siow Wei Xuan, was selected to acquire more scientific knowledge and research skills which were important for successful completion of the project.
After completing the project, the students had to prepare for the oral presentation. Here they were tirelessly assisted by Ms Lee Yoke Ling (CASS staff) in consultation with the project supervisors.
Speaking on behalf of her project team, Wei Xuan commented:
…. we gained valuable presentation skills and obtained useful opinion from public. In short, I am greatly delighted that I took on this project and I believe that all the experience and knowledge gained will benefit me in the future.
By Dr Handojo