Entry 1: Category to Enter

3rd February 2012

A few weeks ago, our group had decided to do a project on aquaponics due to the exposure we had on it in Secondary 2 and the fact that it had potential in several project categories. However, due to the broad diversity of ideas we formulated with aquaponics, we had not chosen a specific category to enter our project in yet.

The first project category that the group was contemplating to join was the Service Learning Project. In the previous meeting, we had decided that we could introduce and integrate aquaponics to large scale farming industries nowadays and work towards more environmentally friendly methods of carrying out industrial activities. At the same time, we could, with our set up, also produce organic vegetables to be donated to the poor, thus reaching out to the less fortunate in our community. The purposes that we had in the project fulfilled the criteria of Service Learning, thus it was one of the most viable options we had. However, there were several problems that we only realised today. First, there are limited farming areas in Singapore. Thus, if we wanted the project to be large scale, we had to focus on promoting the system overseas, which could be troublesome and difficult to accomplish due to the short timeframe we had. Next, the already short timeframe also amounted to a low amount of food supplies that we could produce; As each vegetable took about 2-3 months to grow, with our limited number of set ups, we would not be able to produce enough food to serve the community. In fact, our contributions in this sector would more or less become negligible. Another lingering problem was that one of the aquaponics set-ups we had was faulty and water was unable to flow through the system smoothly, thus leading to the inability to use it. Thus, we had no choice but to look towards an alternative project.

Even though we shunned the idea of inventing a new prototype at first, the fact that there was a faulty aquaponics system gave us an idea – if we were able to come up with a successful prototype that would not only be able to replace the faulty system but also achieve other uses, then it would fufill the criteria for the Inventions Category! During the meeting, we decided to create a hydroponics system that would not only help to promote environmental friendliness The recent interests that people have expressed in aquaponics systems also spurred us to go deeper and explore further. Through all these ideas, we finally decided:

We were going to embark on an aquaponics project in the Inventions Category!