VietNamNet Bridge – Seeing his cousin, an 11th grader, struggling to remember chemical formulas, Kim Hao, a 7th grader, decided to create a palmtop computer which can help students easily find information and learn chemistry.
The small, portable device contains 1,000 inorganic chemical equations that secondary and high school students need to deal with regularly. The palmtop device, which fits within a person’s palm, helps students search information, balance equations and recognize chemical substances.
The inventor is Nguyen Duong Kim Hao, a 7th grader ot Nguyen Gia Thieu Secondary School in HCM City, showed a special passion for microchips in his childhood.
He spent much time reading informatics books when he was at primary school. He often asked his father, a physics teacher, about electric currents and circuits, and tried to make things for daily use with the knowledge he got from books, teachers and his father.
The things Hao made are very friendly and useful for daily life. He created a smart control panel which allows him to automatically break the switch when devices are not in use. The panel is a gift for his forgetful mother.
As his cousin, an 11th grader, complained she found it very difficult to remember chemical formulas, Hao decided to create a palmtop which can help her look for information more easily.
After six months of working hard with no holiday, the boy created a “palmtop for learning chemistry”.
The device has information stored in its memory and is processed with its IC.
Hao, however, is unsatisfied with his work, saying that the information processing speed is just 16 MHZ. Therefore, he has decided to work more on the device to upgrade it.
The palmtop has the advantages of being small, portable, convenient and ready to serve chemistry learning anytime and anywhere. When asked about the production cost, Hao said if it is made in a large scale, the production cost would be VND200,000-300,000.
“It still does not have a screen to display results, while the cover is not really beautiful. I will make it more beautiful,” Hao said.
However, the idea about the palmtop was great enough to persuade the jury board of the “HCM City Young Innovative Idea” competition to give Hao the first prize.
Previously, Hao’s smart-control panel, which automatically disconnects electric appliances, caught the public’s special attention at an international technology and invention exhibition in Malaysia in 2013.
Hao, who was then 12 years old, won a big prize from a South Korean science institute.
Hao’s parents said they are willing to do everything to help their son develop his talent.
Hao and his mother have left their home village in Tien Giang province for HCM City, where they live in a rented apartment and Hao goes to a prestigious school.
The boy reportedly often spends his lunchtime wandering around at the Nhat Tao electronics flea market, looking for ICs and circuits for his machines.
Now 13, Hao is now the youngest student of the FPT Academy’s programmer training class.
VNE