THE STRAITS TIMES FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2015
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2. ARCHER ATTACK
By: PUB, the national water
agency
By: Siblings Peh Guan and
Peh Yong
Arguably Singapore’s most
talked-about success story,
Newater refers to the
high-grade reclaimed water
that is purified with advanced membrane and ultraviolet technologies.
The ultra-clean water has
aced more than 110,000 scientific tests and surpasses
the
World
Health
Organisation’s requirements
for safe drinking water.
More importantly, the reclaimed water ensures that
the taps in Singapore do not
run dry.
Newater, which made its
public debut during the National Day Parade in 2002,
was a result of about three
decades of research.
The foam from your soapy bathwater could be turned into a
weapon system that can take
down enemy aircraft.
Peh Guan, then five, teamed
up with his sister Peh Yong, then
nine, and came up with “Archer
Attack”, which won them an Encouragement Award at the Tan
Kah Kee Young Inventors’ Award
2013.
Ground troops can use Archer
Attack, a light defence option,
against air attacks.
When an enemy aircraft approaches, a soldier can fire capsules containing sticky foam balls
into the air, using an M203 grenade launcher. When these foam
balls are sucked into airplane engines, they force the turbines to
slow down or stop.
The team from Awak Technologies includes (from left) general manager Jasmin Wong, operations
director Lim Yong Soon, chairman Gordon Ku, executive director Neo Kok Beng and finance director
Lilian Ng (seated).
Making
3. CREATIVE
SOUND BLASTER
By: Creative Technology Ltd
In 1989, home-grown Creative
Technology introduced a product that soon became one of
the most recognised names in
the personal computer audio
market.
The Sound Blaster sound
card, considered a breakthrough at the time, not only
made digital music-playing
widely available, but also enabled PC users to record voice
clips and connect their PCs to
musical instruments.
First launched at Comdex
1. NEWATER
’89, a leading international
computer trade show held annually in Las Vegas, the United
States, 600 units of the sound
card were sold over the
five-day show.
As of 2013, more than
400 million Sound Blaster
products, including speakers
and gaming headsets, have
been sold worldwide.
4. AWAK PD
By: Awak Technologies
Dialysis treatments often take up several
hours each day, making it difficult for kidney patients to go to school, work or travel.
But, for water dialysis patients, all that
could change when clinical trials of a portable device begin in 2017.
The automated artificial kidney peritoneal dialysis device – or the Awak PD –
mimics a real kidney and is able to provide
water dialysis round the clock. Weighing
history
Since the 1980s, made-in-Singapore inventions have
been making names for themselves worldwide.
NUR SYAHIIDAH ZAINAL checks out 10 of them
less than 1kg, it can be worn on a belt or
carried in a bag.
Currently, patients on water dialysis are
hooked up to a large non-portable device
and each dialysis session takes up to eight
hours. Two American researchers first
dreamed up such a device in the 1980s.
Singaporean kidney specialist, Dr Gordon Ku, heard of the idea and started the
company to develop it, working together
with the Americans and Temasek Polytechnic. This system would help at least 800 patients in Singapore and 196,000 patients
worldwide, who are on home-based water
dialysis.
6. INFRARED FEVER
SCREENING SYSTEM
By: ST Electronics and the Defence Science and
Technology Agency
5. LARVAE-EATING ROBOTIC FISH
All the Infrared Fever Screening System needs is a
moment to detect if someone has a fever.
The world’s first non-invasive screening system
takes thermographs of people, allowing easy identification of those with high fever: red means hot,
green means not. The system was developed within two days during the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2003.
High fever is a primary symptom of highly conta-
gious diseases such as Sars and avian flu (bird flu) –
which border patrol officers and hospital staff
watch out for. Dozens of the systems were sold
and used in public spaces, such as airports, hospitals and hotels, throughout Asia.
8. GLYDESAFE
By: Ms Serene Tan (Sorgen)
By: Mr Teo Kai Cheng, Ms Yeung Tsz Tsam (centre)
and Ms Daphne Tan (Temasek Polytechnic)
This robot fish is no toy. Its mission? Combat dengue.
Just like real fish, the robotic fish “eat up” mosquito larvae in ponds or rivers to fight the spread of dengue. What sets it apart is that they can do so in dirty
water – which fish generally cannot survive in.
The gadget first sucks up the larvae using a vacuum tube in its “mouth”. A sharp-edged turbine inside
it then minces the larvae. The remains are then discharged through a small opening below the tail.
The device will not harm live fish and eggs, which
are too large to fit into the vacuum tube.
Its inventors are still looking to commercialise it.
9. ROTIMATIC
7. SELF-CLEANING MEMBRANES
By: Associate Professor Darren Sun (Nanyang Technological University)
Membranes are used to filter impurities from waste
water, but cleaning them is costly.
Now, a self-cleaning membrane could save companies millions of dollars. They do not require expensive cleaning chemicals, are expected to last twice as
long and break less easily.
The invention, marketed by an NTU start-up, has
already been snapped up by firms in the region, such
as for an industrial paper mill in Guangzhou, China.
Associate Professor Darren Sun (left) and Adjunct Professor
Wong Ann Chai, co-founder and managing director of NTU
start-up Nano Sun, fitting their newly developed membrane
into a water filtration system.
In 2011, Ms Serene Tan spotted
an elderly person struggling to
move while using a walking
frame.
The encounter resulted in
Ms Tan’s invention of the GlydeSafe, a walking frame with a
wheeled attachment. Users can
roll the frame, instead of having
to lift it up with each step.
There is also an automatic
brake for safety.
Ms Tan, who worked on the
idea as her final-year project at
Temasek Polytechnic, won several awards for her invention, including a silver award at the
2011 Tan Kah Kee Young
Inventors’ Awards.
The product was first used in
a trial run at 24 hospitals and
elder care and rehabilitation
centres nationwide before being launched in 2013.
There are currently two
GlydeSafe models on sale – the
GlydeSafe Sleek is $99, while
the GlydeSafe Travel, which has
a retractable seat, costs $120.
By: Mr Rishi Kumar and Ms Pranoti Israni
(Zimplistic)
Love eating chapati but have no idea how
to make it?
Well, now you can enjoy ready-to-eat
Indian flatbread without too much hassle
by making it using an automatic chapati
maker.The Rotimatic, the first kitchen device of its kind, can produce one chapati
per minute.
Users can customise the bread’s thickness and softness, and vary the amount of
oil and type of flour used by following instructions on a digital panel.
About $5 million worth of the Rotimatic have been pre-sold to American customers and will start shipping this year.
10. CAROUSELL
By: Mr Quek Siu Rui, Mr Marcus Tan
and Mr Lucas Ngoo
This mobile marketplace allows people to sell and buy products directly on
their smartphones.
Carousell’s unique selling point is
its easy-to-use interface. Users simply
snap a photo of their items before listing them for sale. Shoppers can filter
the posts by location. This makes collecting or delivering products more
convenient.
Mr Quek Siu Ru, a co-founder, said
Singapore is the app’s largest market,
followed by Malaysia. Late last year, it
raised US$6 million (S$7.8 million)
from investors led by Sequoia Capital.
PHOTOS BT FILE, CAROUSELL, COURTESY OF AARON BOO GUAN XIAN, LIANHE ZAOBAO FILE, ST FILE, TEMASEK POLYTECHNIC, ZIMPLISTIC