The ROADSTER Team from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Vocational School, Universitas Gadjah Mada (SV UGM), together with Generasi Penggerak Masyarakat Kepuh Kulon (GPMK), recently conducted a collaborative activity titled ROADVENTURE: Jelajahi, Temukan, Laporkan (Explore, Discover, Report). More than a technical activity, ROADVENTURE served as an alternative field-based learning space that shifted the academic paradigm from teaching to learning together with the community.
In this activity, UGM lecturers and students came together to listen, identify problems, and build technology collaboratively with local youth.
The collaboration was driven by the spirit of creating solutions that are not only functional but also contextual and rooted in social realities.
“Starting from the Kelompok Bermain Permata Bunda in Kepuh Kulon, Wirokerten, this activity represents the real implementation of the Tera Saintek Program, a strategic initiative of Kemdiktisaintek that emphasizes the importance of co-creation between universities and communities to address local issues participatively,” said Dr. Agustinus Winarno, lecturer and researcher at SV UGM, on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025.
According to Dr. Winarno, the ROADVENTURE activity expanded the learning content of computer programming and entrepreneurship into a broader context of collaboration and problem-solving.
In addition to him, the activity was supported by other lecturers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, SV UGM, including Irfan Bahiuddin, Galuh Bahari, and AI researcher Faturahman Yudanto, an alumnus of the UGM Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMIPA UGM).
Dr. Winarno emphasized that the issues addressed in this activity were highly tangible: road damage and the growing problem of illegal waste dumping, particularly disposable diapers and sanitary pads, mostly originating outside the village.
“Through the AI-based ROADSTER application, participants precisely mapped the locations of road damage and waste distribution points,” he explained.
Furthermore, Dr. Winarno explained that field-collected data served as the basis for designing a digital reporting system capable of detecting illegal dumping in real time.
ROADSTER itself, he explained, is an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system developed to detect road damage, which is currently being expanded with new data to automatically classify types of waste.
“Its main advantage lies in its ability to process community reports through a digital reporting application, whether on road damage or illegal waste, and convert them into spatial data indicating the location and classification of waste,” he explained.
Moving forward, together with the local youth group, the ROADSTER UGM team will conduct further data labeling to improve the system’s accuracy in identifying and mapping environmental issues more precisely.
Sunartana, the Head of Kepuh Kulon Hamlet, expressed his full support for the initiative.
He regarded this activity as an important first step in promoting innovation and participation-based village development.
A similar sentiment was shared by Ahmad Fauzan Karnadi, Chair of GPMK.
For him, the activity was both inspiring and enlightening for young people, showing that data and technology can serve as tools for community empowerment rather than the exclusive domain of academics.
Moreover, the outcomes of this initiative will serve as the foundation for developing proposals for educational programs on household waste management and infrastructure improvement.
“This activity certainly aligns with our efforts to strengthen the village’s position as a tourist destination and to develop melinjo chip (emping melinjo) MSMEs, which form the backbone of the local economy,” said Karnadi.
Author: Agung Nugroho
Post-editor: Lintang Andwyna