He dreams of becoming an engineer with the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration, so tinkering with gizmos and gadgets, and scouring the Web for nuggets about new inventions are Devansh Singhal’s favourite pastime activities.

However, the 13-year-old Montfort Secondary School student really has his fill with experiments under his school’s Applied Learning Programme (ALP), which centres on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. For instance, he recently built a smart home with his friends, where fans automatically switch on when it gets too warm.

ALPs emphasise the application of thinking skills and connecting knowledge across subject disciplines, including in niche areas such as business and entrepreneurship, design, robotics and journalism.

Mr Ricky Tan, subject head of information systems, technology and design, said that Montfort started ALP lessons this June with the theme “Design, Code, Make”, to spark students’ curiosity and let them work on “real-world problems”.

For about an hour during school time, they work on codes, for example, under coaching by two teachers and a staff member from the Science Centre Singapore.

The students have come up with several inventions, including a smart garden where sensors trigger a watering of the soil when moisture level gets too low, and a timing system that calculates sprinters’ speed.

After going through the ALP in Secondary 1 and 2, interested students may pursue computing as an O-Level subject, which the school will start offering from 2018.

Devansh said that the ALP helps him get a better idea of concepts, such as how resistors and transistors work. “I used to think that science was just about chemistry and mixing chemicals, but it involves more than that, like circuits and coding ... (and) it helps us understand how things work (in real life),” he said, adding that his next dream project is to create a drone that detects movements of intruders attempting break-ins.

Fellow student Noah Ho, 13, said that the ALP classes gives him a breather from “normal curriculum lessons” that are book-based. “(In) ALP, we get to interact with friends and build (things) together ... There’s a sense of accomplishment,” he said.

Montfort plans to have a Maker Lab by the first quarter of next year, providing space and equipment such as basic electronics, sensors and 3D printers for students to explore their interests during recess or after school.

Noting that “boys are tactile in nature” and skills in computer programming and electronics are “in the limelight right now”, Mr Tan said: “As an educator, what we can do is to provide the facilities, the platform and guidance to help them come up with bigger ideas and achieve their dreams.” TOH EE MING

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by TOH EE MING

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