UNS — Good news come from the students of Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta, as three of its students won the Agriverse International Essay Competition. This international essay competition is organized by the International Association of Students in Agricultural and Related Sciences Local Committee (IAAS LC) UNS, which is conducted virtually through Zoom Cloud Meeting.
The three amazing students are Nugroho Hasan from Agricultural Extension and Communication Study Program (PKP) 2018, Muhammad Fuadi Hakimi from Mechanical Engineering Study Program 2018, and Fatata A’izza Rosyada from Mathematics Study Program. The three were incorporated into a team known as ‘Durio’. In this competition, they succeeded creating tools namely Durio Loc Smart Tools, which developed for at least 2 months.
“Our product is the Durio Loc Smart Tools. This sleeve-like tool is to keep Durian remain good and not rotting during heavy rainfall while ensuring the fruit stay in its tree. The tool is divided into three parts namely the reservoir, micro control, and plastic. This tool is also integrated into an Android application, which allows the tool to record the position of Durian fruits in the Global Positioning System (GPS) and saved it on the SD card. Ripe Durian will send a signal from Arduino to the Android system, which allows detection by the tool,” explains Hasan when contacted by uns.ac.id team on Sunday (21/3/2021).
Using the Durio Loc Smart Tools, the team is awarded as the first winner on Saturday (20/3/2021). They do not expect this win. Especially because the three are from different faculties, thus it is hard to match their schedule.
“We did not expect this due to our busy schedule. But, wow, we are actually blessed with this. The process is extremely complex because we are from different faculties. Fuadi from the Faculty of Engineering (FT) and Fatata from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science (FMIPA), while I am from the Faculty of Agriculture (FP). It is really difficult to meet-up, so we have to work on our part individually and then combine them. We finally managed to send the full paper at the last seconds,” Hasan reveals.
Departed from their concern toward the Durian farmer in Candimulyo, they take the initiative to develop the tool with the hope that it can help Durian farmers.
“The background of this creation is due to the decreasing productivity from the Durian farmer in Candimulyo, Magelang because of the heavy rainfall. We hope that Durio Loc Smart Tools can be further developed and implemented in Candimulyo, Magelang,” explains Hasan representing his team members. Humas UNS
Reporter: Zalfaa Azalia Pursita
Editor: Dwi Hastuti