Ateneo de Davao University’s Engineering and Physics Division Teams Up to Design and Fabricate “Proudly Filipino Made” Physics Laboratory Apparatus

Although it is not uncommon to see knit socks with the label one-size-fits-all, or nylon briefs labeled unisex, yet in education this is not feasible. On the collegiate level each discipline has its own unique pedagogical methods to maximize student comprehension. For Physics this comes down to teaching with-toys.

The college Physics faculty swears by this proposition. Chalk-boards, white-boards, even Power Point presentations do not fully suffice. Hands-on (and minds-on, too) experience in the laboratory is an essential ingredient for grasping scientific principles and abstract formulas. However in the laboratory the question is "hands-on what"?

Although good laboratory apparatus costs big bucks, yet the department persisted in dreaming an impossible dream. The nitty-gritty of that dream boiled down to the following specifics:

1. In laboratory students are to work in groups not exceeding four members.
2. All groups work with similar equipment on the same task, so that the laboratory activity is closely allied with the current lecture topics.
3. Since the Science branch of the Ateneo money-tree is parched and shriveled there is no other viable option than do it-yourself.

With a little bit of luck that dream has slowly become reality over the past six years. Currently, apart from spring-scales from Guandung and multimeters from Taipei, almost all our Physics laboratory apparatus has been designed and fabricated within the Ateneo, and this has meant 12 sets of identical equipment for each experiment. Animo Ateneo talaga!

Some five years back it became apparent that while the Physics facilities were improving, there was a real need of additional student apparatus in our Engineering programs. Accordingly the Physics department turned its attention toward assisting the Engineering division in this area. To date student laboratory equipment and accompanying laboratory manuals have been completed for seven different ECE courses. Averaging ten experiments per course and ten equipment sets per experiment, this comes to more than 700 individual units. While the design and quality control has been done on campus the duplication of this Engineering apparatus has been done by a group of out-of-school youth from Panacan, especially trained for this work as part of the department's social outreach program.

As of the present school year the capabilities of the Engineering division have sufficiently developed so as to permit further equipment design and production to be carried out by their own faculty. This fortunate development allowed the Physics department to turn their eyes toward Matina.

The high school saw the desirability to completely upgrade their Physics laboratory holdings. A plan was laid out to produce approximately forty new student laboratory experiments, prepare pop-sheets for each and provide eleven sets of equipment for each experiment. As of mid-January of this year, this work is approximately 60% complete with the target date for wrap-up as June of this year.

All this magic has emanated from a grotto located at R-304, Del Rosario building. The witches stirring the cauldron there are Engr. Reymann Zamora, Romulo Pepa and Fr. Francisco Glover. Interestingly enough, about half of what has been produced over the past years has been for other schools in the area interested in upgrading their instruction. Xavier University in Cagayan and Silliman University in Dumaguete have been our best customers. Currently we are designing a new sticker to be placed unobtrusively on each item produced, reading "Proudly Filipino Made" and in much smaller letters "No refund, No return".