On October 26, Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) will host the Science Dream Tree Machine Manufacturing Competition to promote children’s interest in machinery technology and to cultivate their creativity as well as integrated thinking. The competition is going to be held under the supervision of KAIST Youth Culture and Technology Experience Center and HelloDD, the media network for science and industry of the local Daedeok Innopolis.

KIMM is a research institute established in 1976 to develop new machinery technologies while diffusing research outcomes and conducting reliability assessments. The main research areas of KIMM include advanced manufacturing systems, extreme mechanical engineering, nano-convergence mechanical systems, and environmental and energy systems.

KIMM has actively cooperated with other institutes, universities, and industrial organizations, thriving to become the research and development (R&D) hub of the machinery field in Korea. KAIST has been its cooperative organization since 2008 to collaborate in the R&D on renewable energy and in the establishments of commercialization hubs.

KIMM Science Dream Tree Machine Manufacturing Competition, held for students from 4th to 6th grade, is held under the theme of “The Integration of Machine and Play: Making My Own Automaton Toy.”

The competition consists of two rounds: the preliminary and the final. In the preliminary round, participants need to study about automata and submit their idea sketch and product plan. The deadline for the submission had been postponed from September 30 to October 7 due to the request from many of its applicants.

Having announced the 60 qualified applicants on October 10, KIMM will hold the final round on October 26. Participants will make  products from the given materials and will give demonstrations at the KIMM auditorium and the main conference hall.

KIMM Science Dream Tree Machine Manufacturing Competitionis sponsored by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Daejeon Metropolitan Office of Education, and Korea Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Creativity.