It was just an ordinary Saturday. My dad was outside mowing the lawn, my mom was upstairs folding laundry, my sister was in her room doing homework and I was in the basement playing video games. And as I came upstairs to get something to drink, I looked out the window and realized that there was something that I was supposed to be doing, and this is what I saw.
Suatu ketika di hari Sabtu yang tenang. Ayahku sedang memotong rumput di halaman, ibuku sedang melipat pakaian, saudariku sedang mengerjakan PR di kamarnya, dan aku sedang bermain gim video di ruang bawah tanah. Ketika aku naik ke atas dan mengambil minuman, aku melihat ke jendela, dan menyadari ada sesuatu yang seharusnya kulakukan, dan inilah yang kulihat.
No, this wasn't my family's dinner on fire. This was my science project. Flames were pouring out, smoke was in the air and it looked like our wooden deck was about to catch fire. I immediately started yelling. My mom was freaking out, my dad ran around to put out the fire and of course my sister started recording a Snapchat video.
Bukan hidangan makan malam keluargaku yang sedang terbakar. Ini adalah proyek sainsku. Api berkobar, asap membubung di udara, dan dek kayu kami hampir terbakar. Aku langsung berteriak. Ibuku terlihat panik, ayahku berlari memadamkan api, dan saudariku merekam video Snapchat.
(Laughter)
(Tawa)
This was just the beginning of my team's science project. My team is composed of me and three other students who are here in the audience today. We competed in FIRST LEGO League which is an international LEGO robotics competition for kids, and in addition to a robotics game, we also worked on a separate science project, and this was the project that we were working on.
Ini adalah awal dari proyek sains milik timku. Timku terdiri dari aku dan tiga murid lain yang sekarang juga hadir di sini. Kami berlomba di <i>FIRST LEGO League,</i> kompetisi robot LEGO internasional untuk anak-anak. Selain lomba robot tadi, kami juga mengerjakan proyek sains lain, dan inilah proyek yang kami kerjakan.
So the idea for this project all started when a few months earlier, a couple of my teammates took a trip to Central America and saw beaches littered with Styrofoam, or expanded polystyrene foam. And when they came back and told us about it, we really started thinking about the ways in which we see Styrofoam every day. Get a new flat-screen TV? You end up with a block of Styrofoam bigger than the TV itself. Drink a cup of coffee? Well, those Styrofoam coffee cups are sure going to add up. And where do all these items go after their one-time use? Since there aren't any good existing solutions for used Styrofoam, almost all of them end up right in the landfill, or the oceans and beaches, taking over 500 years to degrade. And in fact, every year, the US alone produces over two billion pounds of Styrofoam, filling up a staggering 25 percent of landfills.
Jadi, ide untuk proyek ini muncul ketika beberapa bulan lalu, beberapa anggota timku bepergian ke Amerika Tengah dan melihat pantai yang tercemar stirofoam<i>,</i> atau busa polistirena. Saat mereka kembali dan menceritakannya, kami mulai memikirkan penggunaan stirofoam sehari-hari. Baru beli TV layar datar? Kamu dapat balok stirofoam yang lebih besar dari TV. Membeli segelas kopi? Gelas kopi stirofam tentunya akan menumpuk. Ke mana semua benda ini pergi setelah sekali dipakai? Karena belum ada solusi yang bagus untuk stirofoam bekas, hampir semuanya berakhir di tempat pembuangan akhir, atau di laut dan pantai, dan perlu 500 tahun untuk terurai. Faktanya, setiap tahun, AS saja memproduksi lebih dari 900 juta kilogram stirofoam, memenuhi 25 persen dari tempat pembuangan.
So why do we have these ghost accumulations of Styrofoam waste? Why can't we just recycle them like many plastics? Well, simply put, recycled polystyrene is too expensive and potentially contaminated, so there is very little market demand for Styrofoam that has to be recycled. And as a result, Styrofoam is considered a nonrenewable material, because it is neither feasible nor viable to recycle polystyrene. And in fact, many cities across the US have even passed ordinances that simply ban the production of many products containing polystyrene, which includes disposable utensils, packing peanuts, takeout containers and even plastic beach toys, all products that are very useful in today's society. And now France has become the first country to completely ban all plastic utensils, cups and plates.
Kenapa kita punya tumpukan limbah stirofoam ini? Kenapa kita tidak mendaurulangnya seperti halnya plastik? Singkatnya, polistirena hasil daur ulang sangatlah mahal dan berpotensi terkontaminasi, jadi ada sangat sedikit permintaan daur ulang stirofoam<i>.</i> Akibatnya, stirofoam<i> </i>dianggap sebagai material yang tidak bisa didaur ulang, karena tidak gampang mendaur ulang polistirena<i>.</i> Faktanya, banyak kota di AS telah membuat peraturan yang melarang produksi barang yang mengandung polistirena<i>,</i> termasuk alat makan sekali pakai, kacang pengepakan, wadah pembungkus makanan, dan bahkan mainan pantai berbahan plastik, semua produk itu berguna bagi masyarakat. Saat ini, Prancis menjadi negara pertama yang melarang pemakaian alat makan plastik, gelas, dan piring plastik.
But what if we could keep using Styrofoam and keep benefiting from its cheap, lightweight, insulating and excellent packing ability, while not having to suffer from the repercussions of having to dispose of it? What if we could turn it into something else that's actually useful? What if we could make the impossible possible?
Tetapi, bagaimana jika kita tetap memakai stirofoam dan terus memanfaatkan sifatnya yang murah, ringan, menginsulasi, dan kemampuan membungkus yang bagus, namun tidak mengalami dampak negatif dari limbah pembuangannya? Apa jadinya bila kita bisa mengubahnya menjadi benda lain yang bermanfaat? Apa jadinya jika kita bisa melakukan hal yang mustahil?
My team hypothesized that we could use the carbon that's already in Styrofoam to create activated carbon, which is used in almost every water filter today. And activated carbon works by using very small micropores to filter out contaminants from water or even air.
Tim saya menduga bahwa kita bisa memakai karbon yang ada dalam stirofoam untuk membuat karbon aktif, yang digunakan di saringan air. Karbon aktif bekerja dengan memakai mikropori<i> </i>yang sangat kecil untuk menyaring kontaminan dari air atau bahkan udara.
So we started out by doing a variety of heating tests, and unfortunately, we had many failures. Literally, nothing worked. Besides my dad's grill catching on fire, most of our samples vaporized into nothing, or exploded inside expensive furnaces, leaving a horribly sticky mess. In fact, we were so saddened by our failures that we almost gave up.
Jadi, kami memulainya dengan berbagai macam tes pemanasan, dan sayangnya, kami berulang kali gagal. Tidak ada yang berhasil. Selain panggangan ayah saya terbakar, hampir seluruh sampel kami menguap, atau meledak di dalam tungku pembakaran yang mahal, meninggalkan kotoran lengket. Sesungguhnya kami sangat sedih hingga kami hampir menyerah.
So why did we keep trying when all the adults said it was impossible? Well, maybe it's because we're kids. We don't know any better. But the truth is, we kept trying because we thought it was still possible. We knew that if we were successful, we would be helping the environment and making the world a better place. So we kept trying and failing and trying and failing. We were so ready to give up.
Lalu, mengapa kami terus mencoba meski semua orang dewasa menganggapnya mustahil? Mungkin karena kami hanya anak-anak. Kami tidak tahu apa-apa. Namun, kami terus berusaha karena kami pikir hal ini memungkinkan. Kami tahu bahwa bila kami sukses, kami akan membantu lingkungan dan membuat dunia menjadi lebih baik. Jadi, kami terus mencoba dan gagal dan mencoba dan gagal. Kami sudah siap untuk menyerah.
But then it happened. With the right temperatures, times and chemicals, we finally got that successful test result showing us that we had created activated carbon from Styrofoam waste. And at that moment, the thing that had been impossible all of a sudden wasn't. It showed us that although we had many failures at the beginning, we were able to persevere through them to get the test results that we wanted. And moreover, not only were we able to create activated carbon for purifying water, but we were also able to reduce Styrofoam waste, solving two global problems with just one solution.
Lalu terjadilah. Dengan suhu, waktu, dan zat kimia yang tepat, kami akhirnya berhasil dan menciptakan karbon aktif dari limbah stirofoam. Dan pada momen itu, sesuatu yang dianggap mustahil tiba-tiba tak lagi mustahil. Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa meskipun kami banyak gagal di awal, kami tetap bertahan untuk mendapat hasil yang kami inginkan. Terlebih, tidak hanya kami mampu menciptakan karbon aktif untuk menyaring air, tetapi kami juga mampu mengurangi limbah stirofoam, menyelesaikan dua masalah global hanya dengan satu solusi.
So from then on, we were inspired to take our project further, performing more tests to make it more effective and testing it in real world situations. We then proceeded to receive funding from the NSTA's eCYBERMISSION STEM-in-Action program sponsored by the US Army, as well as FIRST Global Innovation Awards sponsored by XPRIZE. And we were also honored with the Scientific American Innovator Award from Google Science Fair. And using these funds, we plan to file a full patent on our process and to continue to work on our project.
Jadi, sejak itu kami terinspirasi untuk melanjutkan proyek kami, melakukan lebih banyak tes agar lebih efektif dan mencobanya di situasi nyata. Kemudian, kami menerima bantuan dana dari NSTA’s eCYBERMISSION STEM-in-Action program yang disponsori oleh Militer AS, serta <i>FIRST Global Innovation Awards</i> yang disponsori oleh XPRIZE. Kami juga mendapat penghargaan <i>Scientific American Innovator Award</i> dari Google Science Fair. Dengan dana ini, kami berencana untuk membuat paten dan terus melanjutkan proyek kami.
So yes, although we started with catching my dad's grill on fire and failing so many times that we almost quit, it was well worth it when we look back at it now. We took a problem that many people said was impossible and we made it possible, and we persevered when it looked like nothing that we did would work. We learned that you can't have success without a little, or a lot, of failure.
Jadi ya, meskipun kami mulai dengan membakar panggangan ayah saya dan berkali-kali gagal hingga kami hampir berhenti, hal itu sangat setimpal saat kita renungkan kembali. Kami mengambil sebuah masalah yang banyak orang kira mustahil dan kami membuatnya mungkin, dan kami bertahan meski kami terlihat tidak akan berhasil. Kami belajar bahwa kamu tidak bisa sukses tanpa sedikit, atau banyak kegagalan.
So in the future, don't be afraid if your grill goes up in flames, because you never know when your idea might just catch fire.
Jadi, di masa depan, jangan khawatir apabila pangganganmu terbakar, karena kamu tidak pernah tahu kapan idemu menyala.
Thank you.
Terima kasih.
(Applause)
(Tepuk tangan)