SMK Lutong receiving their prize from Deputy Education Director-General Dr Zainal Aalam Hassan (standing ninth from right). Also seen are Petronas Corporate Strategy senior vice president Firouz Asnan (standing eighth from right) and SMK Lutong principal Michael Bus (standing ninth from left). — Photos courtesy of Petronas
AT age 16, most youngsters have fairly standard concerns – wondering if the number 16 is the rite of passage like all the movies and books suggest, or simply bracing for SPM in the coming year.
In recent years, Form Four students across Malaysia have been given other reasons to occupy their mind.
The Petronas All About Youth (AAY) programme challenges youngsters to think outside their classroom and contribute to the well-being of the community around them.
Petronas AAY is a key Corporate Social Investment (CSI) programme aimed at nurturing and empowering well-rounded Malaysian youths to reach out and make a difference in their community in areas of social development, community well-being and environment.
Green Millennials with their teachers Lee Hou Giap (far left) and Madeline Su (second right).
Boot camps
Last year, 50 selected schools from Terengganu, Melaka, Johor, Sabah and Sarawak attended boot camps to prepare them for their mission, and they had one week to submit a proposal to the secretariat for their RM1,000 start-up grant.
Over in Sarawak, a chance for a shot at the big time fell to SMK Lutong, Miri, when their team – Green Millennials – met all the criteria.
But it didn’t happen without trial and error, research and development, and occasionally stinking up the place with a less than ideal blend.
The 20-member team was led by student Chloe Yeo Lok Yee, whose background in debating gave her one less thing to worry about and made her a natural spokesperson.
“Our project title is ‘to combat the sandfly menace.’ We’re facing a lot of problems because our school is near the beach – which means our students often fall prey to bites. We think it’s a serious problem because some people are allergic to sandfly bites and there are no real good remedies. That’s what inspired us to do this,” she said in a well-rehearsed pitch.
Susan (right) introducing her fellow presenters Hana (left) and Chloe.
Repellent and diffuser
Green Millennials came to KL, bearing two items – a repellent called Repello, and Sewangian, a concentrate that can be used in a room diffuser. They also brought along a 169-page report and a slideshow with 75 transparencies for their 30-minute presentation. More about this later.
SMK Lutong had students living in dormitories on campus and these boarders frequently had to contend with sandfly bites.
When the opportunity to join AAY 2017 came knocking, this matter eventually became something they could do to test their skills and fulfil the competition criteria.
“We interviewed our parents and grandparents about what they use and most of them said lemongrass and ginger,” said Nurhana Aqasyah Khaidzir or Hana for short.
It was a remedy, inspired by the Orang Ulu community, but there was no commercial product of this nature available in the market. This was when the experiments started.
According to Chloe, they tried making the remedy and failed a number of times.
“The colour was not appealing,” she said. “The smell makes you want to puke,” Hana added.
Susan Sii, who rounded up the three-member presenter team together with Chloe and Hana, chimed in: “We added sesame oil. It was very disgusting.”
Green Millennials team leader Chloe making her presentation at the competition last year.
New information
This was new information to their accompanying teacher Magdeline Su, who broke into the interview with: “You added sesame oil?”
Chloe explained they didn’t know how to correct the formula at the time.
Susan pressed on to say once they fixed the colour, their second trial resulted in a product that went bad within a week. Once this was corrected, the shelf life was extended to seven weeks for Repello and 10 weeks for Sewangian.
Green Millennials also struggled with other problems during the development stages of the project such as trying to get fellow teenagers to commit their time and energy.
“When we arrived at state level, we realised we really had to pull the team together. But it became better once we made it to the state level,” Hana revealed.
One of the more impressive outcomes from the Green Millennials was modifying a 20-year-old autoclave to extract a concentrate from their key ingredients.
“We didn’t think it would work at first. The autoclave was 20 years old and there was no tutorial online. We had to digest the concept and apply it to the autoclave and to our surprise, it worked,” Chloe enthused.
It was not enough to just come up with a product and be done with it. Each team was also expected to bring its product out into the local community and get people to use it.
Since sandflies bite everyone in the area, the team was able to reach out to a wide spectrum of people, including Piasau assemblyman Datuk Sebastian Ting who offered to help them to the next step.
Gaining new skills
And while SMK Lutong ended up getting trumped by two other schools which developed mobile apps, it was still quite the trip for 20 youngsters who did not expect to represent the state.
“Other schools were inventing solar panels and power banks. We thought their products would impress more people,” Chloe said, adding that all they expected was to gain a few new skills.
Nonetheless, both teachers who helped keep the team going were pleased they did not go home empty-handed.
Magdeline Su, who taught English, was very happy the students were able to visit KL and experience a slice of the big city for the first time.
“It’s all positive comments from us,” she told thesundaypost.
Science-biology teacher Lee Hou Giap said the students had put their best foot forward but they were not going to stop there.
“I’m going to get them to improve on their project. Hopefully next round will be better. There are still more things to do to bring the project forward.”
SMK Lutong principal Michael Bus said all he did was let the students experiment with things outside the curriculum.
“Part of the challenge was to make them see it could work. It was hard to get people to commit in the beginning because they couldn’t see what it was all about.
“The product was very scientific and though we didn’t have the expertise at first, the students did their research and came up with a product,” he added.
Although they took third spot in AAY 2017, the journey to get there and the experience they took home will remain something to fondly look back on.