With the aim of improving the productivity while preserving the traditional craft, a group of students from universities in Hanoi have built an automatic lotus machine.

In recent years, "Made in Vietnam" high quality lotus fiber silk products have been exported to many countries around the world, generating many benefits. However, the process of spinning lotus stems into silk thread is all done manually. Phan Thi Thuan, the first artisan in Vietnam to make silk from lotus plants, shared that: "It takes about ten days to spin about 3,000 lotus stems into extract and it takes 250g of lotus silk to weave a scarf. Lotus silk is as light and thin as smoke but it's quite costly as it is labor intensive."

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Phan Thi Thuan, the first artisan in Vietnam to make silk from lotus plants

Realizing the potential of the lotus weaving craft, a group of students including Ngo Tran Minh Duc, Nguyen Van Thang, Tran Quoc Dat, and Cao Anh Tu  from the Hanoi University of Sciences and Technology and Luong Duc Trung from the Foreign Trade University started a project to build a lotus fiber extracting machine to raise the productivity of fiber spinning.

Starting in mid-October 2019, the team started their project, designing and modeling machines. When they successfully made a model, they assigned each member of the project team to a job. Some were in charge of programming and designing electronic circuits, others were responsible for making machinery details and assembling the machine.  At first, the team faced many difficulties because such a machine had never been studied and developed before. With youthful energy and creativity, they successfully created a machine after two months of research and development at a cost of about 40 million VND.

The lotus fiber extracting machine includes three main sections. The first section picks up and grasps  lotus stalks. The second section takes lotus fiber out of the stalk. The third section spins the fiber into thread. All working stages are operated automatically.

At the competition "Creative young Bach Khoa 2019", recently held in December 2019, the team won the first prize with their project.

Source: Cand

Translated by Thu Nguyen