Taiwan won 20 gold, eight silver, three bronze and four special awards, achieving the highest overall score among exhibiting nations, at the 5th AII American DAVINCI International Innovation and Invention Expo.
Among the awarded inventions, three students from Fengli Elementary School (豐里國小) in Taitung County won gold and a special award, with their invention of adding a wooden structure to a tape dispenser, allowing single-sided tape to easily become double-sided tape.
Chinese Innovation and Invention Society chairman Wu Chih-yao (吳智堯) said to encourage creative thinking in children from rural areas, the organization sponsored young people from Taitung County, who have won in invention expos, to compete in the US.
There were nearly 200 inventions from 14 countries, including China, South Korea, Thailand and the US, that were competing at the expo this year.
Taiwan had a total of 43 inventions and achieved the highest overall score.
The students from Fengli Elementary School — six graders Lin Hung-ming (林鴻銘) and Hsu Tsu-chieh (徐子傑), and fourth grader Chang En-kai (張恩凱) — got the idea for their invention by observing their teachers often using their fingers to roll single sided tape into double sided, to stick posters onto classroom walls.
They invented a C-shaped structure to add in front of the tape dispenser, allowing the user to easily pull and tear and get double sided tape.
The structure is also retractable, so it can be put away when unused.
Another invention that won gold and a special award is “a vanillin with a tetramer structure” by a research team led by Fooying University Department of Health Beauty professor Hsieh Tian-jye (謝天傑), which has also obtained patents in Taiwan and the US.
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University Institute of Traditional Medicine professor Lin Tung-yi (林東毅) and institute of Biomedical Engineering associate professor Lin Tzu-en (林子恩)’s study proved water soluble polysaccharide derived from Ganoderma lucidum can inhibit the growth of melanoma cells, winning them gold.
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