A team of students from Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) has once again achieved success in the Adhi Innovation for Construction (Adhi ICon) 2024 competition organized by PT Adhi Karya (Persero) Tbk in celebration of the company’s 64th anniversary on Jan. 20 in Jakarta.
The UGM team was crowned the champion after surpassing 100 teams from various other universities in Indonesia.
The UGM student team, named Team El Rose, led by Alfa Rosyid Eryanto (Civil Engineering 2020) and consisting of Elisa Nur Hanifah (Civil Engineering 2021), claimed victory after previously qualifying in the paper submission stage in the preliminary round and making it to the top five in the final presentation round.
“In the final round, our team competed against teams from ITB, ITS, UNDIP, and UII,” explained Alfa Rosyid Eryanto to journalists on Wednesday (Apr. 3) at the UGM campus.
Team El Rose presented a paper on engineering and green construction in this competition, proposing the innovative idea of “Smart EcoTex: Smart Mercerized Coir Geotextile with C. Nardus and Eco GeoPipe.”
Eryanto explained that their Smart EcoTex innovation involves a slope stabilization system using environmentally friendly geosynthetics and plants that function as soil reinforcement, drainage, and erosion control. It can also detect soil movement to maintain stability.
“With this innovation, we hope to promote the implementation of green construction in Indonesia,” he said.
The idea for the Smart EcoTex innovation arose from their concerns about construction companies’ incomplete adoption of green materials in promoting carbon emission reduction and developing soil monitoring systems.
However, realizing this innovative idea was not easy, especially since innovation requires considerable ideation development.
“In processing the idea, we faced challenges related to the detection device’s limited development models,” said Hanifah.
Yet, according to Hanifah, this Smart EcoTex innovation enables information about soil movement, slopes or embankments, and liquefaction to be immediately read by relevant stations for disaster mitigation and evacuation.
Although it is currently just an innovative idea, she hopes it can be fully developed and implemented in actual construction projects, positively impacting the environment, particularly reducing construction waste and carbon emissions.
Author: Gusti Grehenson