Refer Report
“My mother said, ‘I’ll make you soup every day from now on.’”
Kim Tae-hyung (3rd year, Shingwang Middle School, Pohang, Gyeongsangbuk-do), who won the Presidential Award at the 45th National Student Science Invention Competition for inventing a ladle to remove oil from soup dishes, said in a media interview on the 5th, “(Whenever I made soup dishes), my mother had a really hard time, sweating and scooping up (the oil) one by one with a spoon.”
Kim, who appeared on MBC Radio’s ‘Kim Jong-bae’s Focus’ that day, also revealed his future aspirations, saying, “As soon as the patent is completed, we plan to proceed with commercialization immediately.”
The ladle invented by Kim borrowed the principle of the traditional Korean drinking cup, Gyeyeongbae. Gyeyeongbae is a type of cup in which all the alcohol flows down through a thin tube inside the cup when the cup is filled more than 70%. When an oil ladle with this structure is dipped in broth, the oil layers first gather due to the difference in density, and when the broth is scooped up, the clear broth goes down and only the oil remains.
Kim’s motivation for the invention was his father’s belly fat, who had hyperlipidemia. Kim said he was worried about his father’s belly fat, who usually liked oily soups like samgyetang and sagol soup. That’s why the name of the ladle is ‘Catch belly fat and live to be 100 years old! Oil-catching ladle.’
In the interview that day, Kim also said, “My dad has a serious belly fat. You can’t see his feet when you look at them,” and “My dad spent a few hundred thousand won on exercise equipment to lose weight, but after using it for a few days, he’s using it as a clothes hanger.” He added, “I started thinking that if I could reduce the causes of weight gain even a little bit rather than just eating fatty foods to lose weight, I might be able to lose weight.”
Mr. Kim said that his mother’s burden was also reduced thanks to the ladle he made, and that “the family is very happy.”
Kim also said, “The grandmother who runs the local gomtang restaurant liked the ladle I made, and everyone in the neighborhood asks for one.”
The National Student Science Invention Contest has been held annually since 1979 to encourage students’ invention activities. This year, 11,589 people from all over the country participated, and among them, about 300 works, including the Presidential Award and the Prime Minister’s Award, advanced to the finals. The works that advanced to the finals can be seen at the National Science Museum in Daejeon until the 13th.
Reporter Sim Woo-sam wu32@hani.co.kr
Source: Korean