When students do scientific research: Itinerary of a machine for making noodles and vermicelli

Deriving from the fact that in the present market, the demands on noodles and vermicelli are greater and great but machines for making them  have a number of limitations like machinery is simple, handicrafts don’t meet the consumption needs of the society, require a lot of labour force, depend on the weather and don’t bring high economic effectiveness, Quang and Hung developed an idea of carrying out this topic as their scientific research.

Quang and Hung said that their research had to conform to the successive steps of making traditional noodles (materials-steeped- milled into flour- well-steamed- desiccated- cut into noodles- product). Yet, the difference was that as for other machines in the market, those steps which were performed separately, and in spite of the support of machinery, were of small, retail, handicraft scale and still depended much on weather, skill and experience of workers. Moreover, the level of food safety was not high for the steps were carried out separately and were dried outdoors. With regard to the machine created by the two students, those phases were designed to a closed line, overcoming the weaknesses. In order to make me understand, Hung explained further that the machine worked according to the principle that when pressing the start button of the gas cooker to burn the steamer, the thermo-resistance in the drying-room became activated. After a definite period of time, the steamer boiled, providing heat for the autoclave. At the same time, when the drying-room got a necessary temperature to desiccate, the valve of the flour (pasty) container opened so that the flour could flowed into the flour-levelling tray. A few seconds later, when the flour-levelling tray was full, the conveyor belt system and the fan in the drying-room worked. The flour was taken by the conveyor belt system to the autoclave, the drying-room and then to cutting system to make noodles. When the container ran out of flour for a few minutes, and then machine ran out of the flour, the system stopped and returned to its initial state.

Different from the descriptions thought to be seemingly simple, the itinerary of the noodles and vermicelli making machine was miserably hard. There were countless time when Quang and Hung went to noodles and vermicelli making businesses to ask for practice and study but were all refused. Quang confided: “Perhaps because of the lack of trust, they are afraid that we want to learn about their secret of profession.” Fortunately, the two friends met Hung Thanh Do noodles and vermicelli making business’s owner who whole-heartedly helped in the process of survey and research. The deeper they studied, the more Quang and Hung loved their idea. But with the limited financial capacity, the amount of millions of VNDs for making a machine for them was not easy at all. Therefore, they were both doing the work and thinking of a machine which helped to save most and was suitable with the budget (about VND 7million). Quang smiled happily when recalling the process of creating the machine: “My house is like a mechanical shop”. 90% of the machinery equipment was made by Quang and Hung themselves. Most of the shops storing used but able-to-recycle materials in Bien Hoa were familiar with these two students. Sometimes when the iron and steel and wasted materials that they wanted to buy were not in stock there, they had to leave their phone numbers and waited for the later contact of the owners of the shops. There were also many times when they couldn’t find the materials needed after searching for all shops in Bien Hoa, Quang and Hung had to travel to Nhat Tao market – Ho Chi Minh City to “hunt” materials. The most difficult thing was to calculate carefully, during the process of making, technical parameters like the steamer’s capacity, the steamer side’s durability, the durability of the pipe system inside the steamer, the pressure of the steamer, temperature, the power for drying and so on. All had to be worked out thoroughly and cautiously because this could influence the safety level of the equipment; only one defect in hundreds of calculations could also cause an untoward incident. Calculation was one thing; its application to the reality was so difficult for it required the equipment be consistent and synchronous with each other. Therefore, from the figures on formula, the two friends had to experiment many time while making the machine. Quang said: “It takes us 3 months to modify the comprehensive equipment. The completion of our work lasts sharply half a year.” Hung added, during the process of research and creation, they received the support and enthusiastic help from the School Managing Board and teachers, especially the instructions of Mr. Nguyen Vu Quỳnh- a teacher and the Head of Mechatronics Secretariat which helped them feel more confident and correct the weaknesses in experiments so as to put the machine into practice.

This is just a small work but what’s important is the idea is likely to be applied to the reality. Sharing with me his pleasure, Quang said that currently Hung Thanh Do noodles and vermicelli producing business trustfully co-operate with them in technical aspect to expand manufacture with a desire to have a new noodles and vermicelli making machine that can replace handicraft machines. However, Quang and Hung haven’t felt satisfied with this work. They want that after graduation they will spend more time researching further and improving the features and increasing the productivity and durability of the machine. Quang and Hung wish that their work would be present soon in businesses manufacturing noodles, “bun” and vermicelli, increasing the consumption value for labourers and bring high economic effects.

(Translated by THKC)