Research Excellence

Borderless Lab 365, a web-based laboratory platform to share remote lab resources that were built years ago with students from PolyU and secondary schools, has been deemed as the solution to the insufficiency of lab resources as well as to raise interest among STEM students in Hong Kong.

Originally developed and further enhanced by Dr Mak Chee Leung, Associate Professor of the Department of Applied Physics and his team last year to deliver a higher compatibility of conducting a wider range of disciplinary experiments, the platform was funded by the Quality Education Fund to allow students to access and remote-control numerous lab instruments through micro-controllers and sensors, and download realtime data for experiment results.

The mechanism requires teachers and professors to first design the process of experiments on the system before students making appointments and using any of the lab devices - to study on topics like interference phenomenon, visible spectrum and greenhouse gases, covering fields related to physics, chemistry and biology. Teachers can also prepare online assignments for students.

To let more students to enjoy a STEM life, Borderless Lab 365 even allows users to access to designated devices through smart phones, and do simple experiments such as measuring the velocity of sound wave, temperature and the level of CO2 of the surroundings, by making use of the sensors on the phone.

While approached by the Hong Kong Education Bureau to raise interest and motivation among high school students by incorporating the remote lab platform into part of the syllabus in secondary schools, the seamless feature of the lab plays an important role in helping students to do experiments during the pandemic, and allows them to complete their SBA projects at home. In the long run, Dr Mak hopes to further empower the lab by introducing VR and AR technologies to future experiments.

There are now 20 schools and over 2,000 student users using the system.

「全天候科學實驗室」- 為教育界注入STEM新教學方法

香港教育界一直受實驗室資源不足問題困擾，無論是大學或中學生要進行科學實驗，都需要面對較長的輪候時間，而且未必時時可以享用到較完善的設備。

獲香港優質教育基金資助，由應用物理學系副教授麥熾良博士及其團隊研發並於去年改良的「全天候科學實驗室」，可以讓學生透過微型控制器和傳感器遙距控制不同實驗室儀器，來進行包括研究干擾現象、可見光譜和溫室氣體等實驗，涉及物理、化學和生物相關的領域。另外，學生亦可以下載實時數據以獲取即時實驗結果。

這個實驗室裡的儀器全由網上遙控操作，亦需要教師或教授在學生預約使用之前，預先設計好整個實驗的流程，同時可以在系統上為學生準備網上練習。

為了讓更多學生能夠享受STEM的校園生活，「全天候科學實驗室」甚至允許學生利用智能手機遙距控制指定儀器，並透過手機上的傳感器進行簡單的實驗，例如測量聲波的速度、溫度和周圍環境的CO2含量。

現時「全天候科學實驗室」已被香港教育局納入為中學教課設備的一部分，除了能提高中學生對科研的興趣之外，實驗室的遙距功能在新冠肺炎爆發期間亦發揮了重要的教學作用，讓學生能在家中完成校本評核項目。現時已有20間學校和2,000多名學生用戶使用過這個實驗室，而麥博士亦希望未來能為實驗室引入VR和AR技術，讓實驗室變得更多元化。