Caribbean youth deliver big ideas at science and engineering showcase

From designing ergonomic scoliosis braces to programming original video games, the region’s brightest young minds showcased their talents as the 14th Student Program for Innovation in Science and Engineering (SPISE) concluded on Saturday.

The five-week intensive, run by the Caribbean Science Foundation (CSF), attracted 20 participants from across the Caribbean — including, for the first time, two from Haiti.

Hosted at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, the finale featured team presentations in computer programming, entrepreneurship, and electronics, which capped off a curriculum that also covered calculus, physics, and biochemistry.

Team Gear Heads

Despite many being new to the tools and concepts, teams delivered standout results.

The scope of their electronics projects was diverse and ranged from the alarm system Amp-Alert produced by the team Amped-Up Circuit Breakers to a remote-controlled Earth rover modelled after NASA’s Mars Rover by team Fast and Curious.

“The entrepreneurship project is a mini business pitch,” explained Dr Dinah Sah, Co-Executive Director of the CSF and Director of SPISE. “The students come up with a STEM-based business idea and create a pitch for it.”

Interim Executive Director of the CSF, Professor Cardinal Warde.

Judges, including Paul Inniss, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Barbados Operations, Sagicor Life Inc., and Professor Cardinal Warde, Interim Executive Director of the CSF, received $1 million in “fake” investment funds to back their favourites. Students fielded tough questions about the viability of their products in their bid to secure funding.

The top-earning pitch came from ScolioSolutions, whose ScolioFix Brace offers a sleek, adjustable alternative to traditional scoliosis supports, designed to grow with the patient.

Among this year’s participants were 17-year-old Sariah Mclean of The St. Michael School and Accalia Ince of Harrison College.

Ince said she relished the academic challenge. “I have seen myself grow; I have learnt so much about myself. I have become more confident,” she told Barbados TODAY. “I have learnt so much material in such a short space of time. I think the bonds I have made here with people from all over the Caribbean are something I can’t find anywhere else.”

Mclean admitted, “Biochemistry was something I had never done in my life, and it was really cool to have such an in-depth class about it.”

With hopes of studying electrical engineering and computer science, her electronics project was especially meaningful. “We made an assistive piece of technology for visually impaired people. It’s a sensor that beeps whenever the person is close to an object,” she said.

She too relished the experience, noting, “My favourite thing about SPISE was meeting so many people from different islands and the variety of classes offered here.” (STT)