Tapping the Filipino creativity for the common good

(Part 2 of 2)

The belief in the Filipino inventiveness has prompted the University of the Philippines and my institution, the University of Maryland in the US, to create a program called VISSER (pronounced ‘vy-zer’) to address the needs of schools in the country. VISSER stands for “Versatile Instrument System for Science Education and Research” and it is aimed at developing homegrown scientific teaching experiments that are affordable enough to be deployed in all schools and colleges in the country. Our vision is to produce laboratory modules that are sophisticated yet inexpensive and can be used on many different subjects. At 9 a.m., for instance, it can be used to measure the physics of freely falling objects, at 11 a.m. it can be used to analyze the chemical properties of acids and bases, and at 2 p.m., it can be employed to measure the action potentials of frog cells in biology.  The system will be intuitive and easy to use like a smartphone, with apps loaded via the Web. There will be well-written manuals that the students and teachers can easily follow. And if the users get stuck, they can visit a support site, send out text or shoot an e-mail to an expert over the Web. But most importantly, the units will be 1/10th to 1/100th the cost of currently available commercial products. The economic advantage is so huge that these modules will be accessible to all schools, even to those that have extremely modest funding.

We see a number of factors contributing toward its fruition. First, we will take advantage of the rapid rise of technology. At VISSER’s core is a microcontroller that is as powerful as the Apollo flight computer used in bringing man to the moon and back — sufficient for most projects, but now costs less than a couple thousand pesos. Second, we will use open source software. This is to say that we can save on paying licensing fees, and worry less about IP and piracy issues. We will use a platform called the Arduino (www.arduino.cc) which is sweeping the world by virtue of its ease of use and the plethora of available resources. Every day, there are hackers and wannabes that post codes on the Web with Creative Commons (CC) licenses (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/). Work licensed under CC are free of charge to use and the developers expect no remuneration other than recognition of his or her contribution. Some even offer valuable morsels of hardware ideas and snippets of codes that offer building blocks for creating complex applications.

How will we implement the program and engage the nation’s best and brightest? The project development involves three phases. First, we will offer short workshops that introduce the stakeholders, namely high school and college students and faculty to our vision and implementation. The workshop will teach them the rudiments of microcontroller programming, data collection as well as various sensors that detect physical quantities and convert them into electrical signals that can be stored and manipulated. Next, they will perform traditional science experiments using existing apparatus and redesign the same experiments to take advantage of the new microcontroller based data collection. The second phase will be to develop these nascent ideas into fully operational modules that incorporate realistic design constraints. They will be modified to conform to the standards of a single universal handheld main control unit. The software will be enhanced to be highly interactive with clear instructions and graphical user interfaces appearing on displays. The units will be designed to be durable and able to withstand extended use and have built-in failsafe mechanisms to protect the user, the instrument and the environment. Aside from the technical aspects, a critical component is for experts to review the modules for scientific accuracy, appropriateness and pedagogical utility. Select scientists, teachers and students will carefully examine the modules and their suggestions will be incorporated in the final product. We will solicit the help of the Philippine Academy of Science and Engineering (PAASE), the National Academy for Science and Engineering (NAST) as well as the Philippine Science High School System. The final phase is the deployment to schools, combined with rudimentary training of the teachers for their use. The support infrastructure, which includes the answers to FAQs on the Web, along with a live technical help, will be implemented. There will be provisions to allow users to invent new applications and upload them on a central site, which will allow others to replicate their experiments. There will be a system put in place to encourage vibrant exchange of ideas within the community of Filipino users.

We have recently concluded a pilot program of Phase 1 in the VISSER Summer Workshop. It ran from May 14 to 25, 2012 at the National Institute of Physics at the University of the Philippines, Diliman with a select group of 30 outstanding participants. Nine new experimental modules were developed at the end of the workshop. The modules are very high quality and even included manuals that explain and support the activity. Among them were real-time dynamics of spring mass system, measurement of the thermal conductivity of metals using the Peltier effect, a weather station that can be accessed anywhere with a smartphone, and a working model for distributed sensor network connected on the Web for large-scale monitoring of seismic activity, climate and flooding. If this level of output can be achieved in a single two-week session, can you imagine what can be accomplished in a national effort? We are seeking support from DOST and CHED and other partner institutions to hold this activity in many parts of the Philippines.

Let us make no mistake; these are very ambitious plans with very lofty goals. But the stakes are high. Rightly or wrongly, our math and science education is perceived to be inferior in comparison with most nations of the world. We know that we are much better than the rankings suggest. But we have to work collectively to show it.

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RD Mel Gomez received his BS Physics degree from the University of the Philippines and Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Maryland, College Park where he is currently a professor at the Clark School of Engineering. He has taught electrical engineering courses in the past 16 years and is currently the associate chair for undergraduate education. He is an internationally respected researcher and has published more than 80 scientific publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, along with several books and book chapters. He is also an inventor, with three US patents in the general area of nanotechnology. He is a recipient of the US NSF Career Award, the PhilDev Award for outstanding contributions to engineering education, a senior member of the IEEE and was a past president and board member of PAASE. He was a two-time Balik Scientist awardee of the Department of Science and Technology, which allowed him to offer his services to his beloved Philippines.