IO, Solo – A remarkable achievement of a Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta student contingent: they won a gold medal in the 19th MTE 2020 Asian Youth Innovation Awards in Putra World Trade Centre Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Saturday (22/2/2020).
The contingent consisted of students from the Mathematics Education Program Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FKIP): Muhammad Nashiruddin, class of 2016, Muhammad Rosyid Ridho, class of 2016, Arini Nurfadilah, class of 2018, and Dji Hanafit from Mechanical Engineering Program Faculty of Engineering, class of 2018. Their innovation was in inclusive education.
In this event, they submitted a learning medium for the visually impaired: Cube for Inclusive (CIS) Plus. This product is designed to facilitate learning mathematics, especially geometry, for the blind.
“The product is designed in a way to maximize (learning experience) for people with a visual disability, because our target is people with blindness, so how to maximize their sense of touch to visualize the abstract concept of geometry, because we know that geometry is one of more difficult subjects in math,” Arini stated when interviewed by uns.ac.id team on Saturday (26/2/2020) in Building D, FKIP UNS.
What’s more, they expect that the product will benefit a wide range of people, because in today’s era, students are expected to be able to put into practice what they learn in class. Thus, they do not only rely on theory but also provide real action to implement the theory.
In the future, Nashiruddin, Rosyid, Arini and Dji plan to develop a CIS Plus, to be applied to special education in real life. “Of course, this is a positive innovation in the field of education. It also supports UNS in its effort to become an inclusive campus with findings from students who are concerned about those with disabilities,” stated Nashiruddin. (*/est)