Science ministry honors student inventors at national contest

The science ministry awarded the top prize at the 47th National Student Science Invention Contest on Wednesday, honoring a fifth-grader from Ulsan whose door-handle design took the presidential award.

Park Ha-eul, a student at Daehyeon Elementary School, won the presidential prize for a handle that reads the user's intent, the Ministry of Science and ICT said. The prime minister's prize went to Hwang Hyeon-seong, a ninth-grader at Daejeon Jijok Middle School, for a posture-correcting wheelchair.

A total of 8,856 students entered this year, and 299 who advanced through regional rounds competed at the national level at the Science Hall of the National Science Museum, where about 400 people attended the awards ceremony.

First held in 1979, the contest is the country's most prestigious student invention competition, co-hosted annually by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Science Museum.

Organizers handed out 10 grand prizes, 50 special prizes, 100 excellence prizes, 137 encouragement prizes and 38 prizes for teacher papers on guiding student work.

Presidential prize winners receive 8 million won ($5,955) and prime minister's prize winners 4 million won ($2,978), split evenly between the student and the supervising teacher. Winners of grand prize or higher will also take part in an overseas science and culture trip scheduled for November and December, and their works will tour regional education and science institutes over the same period.

The ceremony included congratulatory musical and traditional Korean music performances by winners of the Donga Concours, organized by the Donga Ilbo, a co-host of the contest.

"The National Student Science Invention Contest is a venue where students develop inquiry skills and a spirit of challenge by discovering problems on their own and solving them creatively," said Koo Hyuk-chae, first vice minister of science and ICT. "I hope this contest, with its long history, will continue to grow into a platform for nurturing scientific talent."