STUDENTS of Philippine Science High School-Soccsksargen Region Campus were crowned champions of the 7th Asean+3 Junior Science Odyssey held at Universiti Putra Malaysia from July 29 to August 4, 2018.
As revealed by the students' coach-chaperone Paul Randy Gumanao, "APTJSO is an annual science competition for the Asean countries, and three other non-Asean member countries."
This year, the host was Malaysia.
The student-delegates cum competitors were pitted in three modules: Great Science Ideas, Great Science Quest, and Great Science Pitch.
In the Great Science Ideas, students were made to make a video presentation and poster presentation of their proposed solutions for good health and societal well-being.
"Ang topic na binigay sa kanila is how to improve the accessibility of the disabled community by redesigning public infrastructure. Ang proposed idea nila is an App called DI-FI or DIsability-Friendly Infrastructure na may hardware component na kailangang ilagay sa mga public infra. May functions for indoor navigation, can control traffic lights, may sign language-to-speech converter, may emergency virtual assistant, etc.," Gumanao said.
The Great Science Quest was composed of an outdoor science race and a laboratory component focused on molecular diagnostics, drug synthesis, and development of green energy.
For this, the Pisay Sox team profiled the DNA of a bacteria for the laboratory quest. For chemistry, they were made to synthesize Schiff base that has the potential for developing an anti-microbial drug. While for physics, they developed dye-sensitized solar cells from plant dyes.
The Great Science Pitch had the students polishing and presenting their outputs to a board of judges, the real showdown.
The Philippines was represented by two teams: Team A being from the PSHS Caraga Region Campus and Team B being the Pisay Sox composed of Rhoane Gale Bermudo, Kristen Pauline Gador, and Jonyle Suriaga, all 15 years old and incoming Grade 10, which emerged as the Odyssey's champions.
Second over-all winner is the team from Malaysia, while at third place is South Korea.