{"id":79557,"date":"2026-08-26T05:39:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=79557"},"modified":"2026-08-26T05:39:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:39:51","slug":"teen-develops-air-quality-monitor-inspired-by-allergies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=79557","title":{"rendered":"teen develops air quality monitor inspired by allergies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">SINGAPORE \u2013 <!-- -->It started with sneezing and coughing. Sahana Ramaprasad, 17, noticed that she and her sister had allergic reactions <!-- -->to<!-- --> dust in their surroundings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Using a microchip connected to a sensor, Sahana developed an air quality monitor after her O levels in December 2025 to track the surrounding air.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The sensor monitors the surrounding air quality and sends the data to an <!-- -->Internet of Things-<!-- -->based platform, where she can view information such as the concentration of air particles and <!-- -->which gives<!-- --> her an estimated <!-- -->air quality index<!-- -->.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">She said: \u201cI was trying to upload a code inside the sensor to get it to work. I tried multiple times, but it didn\u2019t work. It kept on giving me errors, which kind of frustrated me. However, I was able to overcome it after taking a break and doing more research on how to properly connect it. In the end, I was able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cMonitoring the air quality helps us identify when dust levels may be higher, so we know when to close the window, clean the room more thoroughly, or avoid staying in dusty areas for too long.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Her interest in science and her hands-on approach put the Tampines Meridian Junior College student among the 200 recipients across 20 schools to be awarded the <!-- -->Ministry of Education\u2019s<!-- --> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/moe-s-engineering-and-tech-scholarship-attracts-more-than-500-applicants-in-first-year?ref=inline-article\" rel=\"noopener\" class=\"gap-x-04 items-center inline text-primary-60 select-auto\" aria-label=\"link\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"custom-link\"><span class=\"inline font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"typography-test-id\">Engineering and Tech Programme Scholarship (ETPS)<\/span><\/a> in <!-- -->July<!-- -->.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">This scholarship is given to pre-<!-- -->university<!-- --> students with a <!-- -->solid<!-- --> foundation in the fields of mathematics and science and a strong desire to further their study into interdisciplinary and real-life applications.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">The award spans two years, providing Singaporean students with an annual allowance of $1,000 and school fees, as well as a one-week ETPS workshop and a work attachment or internship programme during the June or December holidays in their second year of scholarship.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">For Sahana, this scholarship allows her to better explore engineering. Notably, she signed up for the programme because of the \u201cpartnerships with other companies and workshops, which we do not get to experience in our daily lives, especially in a classroom-based setting\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">\u201cBut through this scholarship, I can learn more about engineering and what the engineering professionals do, which is very meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">She has been exploring engineering design thinking as well as taking up online Python programming courses.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\">Sahana added that <!-- -->this<!-- --> project \u201chasn\u2019t eliminated our allergies, but it has helped us take simple preventative measures to reduce our exposure and better manage our symptoms\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-primary font-tertiary-body-baseline-regular\" data-testid=\"article-paragraph-annotation-test-id\"><b>Correction note<\/b>: In an earlier version of the story, we misspelled Sahana Ramaprasad\u2019s name.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/how-allergies-sparked-one-teens-passion-for-engineering\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SINGAPORE \u2013 It started with sneezing and coughing. Sahana Ramaprasad, 17, noticed that she and her sister had allergic reactions to dust in their surroundings&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":79558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/79558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}