Most people commonly never use bagasse as a material. It might also never cross on our mind that the bagasse could be utilized as a material of construction. This notion was purposed by Hernawan Fajar, Aditya Wibawa Mukti, and Alfi Arifai (students of Civil Engineering of UMY). They attempted to employ the bagasse as a compound of concrete making.
The innovation and creativity brought the success of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) in Concrete Competition D’Village 5th Edition organized by Surabaya Institute of Technology (ITS) on 24-26 April 2015. “The idea of utilizing bagasse came from Aditya reading three journals that recommended combining three wastes to produce good concrete. Then, we tried to make a concrete from bagasse. The utilization was supported by the theme of ‘utilizing local waste’,” told Hernawan Fajar interviewed on Friday (7/5) in BHP UMY.
Fajar inserted that what need to consider in concrete making was strength and accuracy. “We only had 30 days for making concrete. We spent a day to make the component and we had to test the strength and accuracy of the concrete. We tested in the 14th day in a laboratory of UMY and in the 28th say we tested it in ITS,” he informed.
Fajar also stated that they were pessimistic about the test in the 14th day since the result was not as they had expected. It was only 16-17 Mpa while the requirement of the competition was 30 Mpa. “In the 28th day, the concrete was tested again, but it was immediately in the competition in ITS. The result was surprising because it is beyond our target, 30-37 Mpa. We were very glad,” he expressed.
It was not easy for Fajar, Alfi, and Aditya to attain the success since they had to cope with some obstacles. “There must be difficulties. For instance, it was hard for us to match our spare time because we had our own business. The competition was very close so that we were lack of time. We also confronted problems dealing with materials since it was hard to have permission of getting the bagasse in Madukismo. We ultimately got the materials in the university laboratory. We were lucky that we always found the way to go out of the difficulties,” said Fajar.
Moreover, Alfi Rifai conveyed that there were two rounds of the competition. First, they were required to submit a proposal and there were only 5 selected universities. UMY was the only private university going to the top five. “Second, the concrete test was directly brought to ITS and finally we became the winner defeating Jember State University (UNEJ), Malang State University (UNM), Bangka Belitung State University (UBB), and University of Indonesia (UI),” he asserted.
Furthermore, the winning altered the perception of Fajar, Alfi, and Aditya on the quality between private and state university. “After defeating the state universities, I shifted my view that the quality among universities is not distinct. What makes different is that, when we try over and over, we would be upper than them. Thus, it is not necessary to feel inferior because of studying at a private university since who decides the quality is ourselves,” Fajar continued.
Alfi expected that the winning would not drive them self-satisfied because there were many other competitions which would foster their skills. “For our juniors who would join competition, we recommend that you use the name of our team, ‘Yogyakarya’ since it could be branding of Civil Engineering of UMY,” he suggested.
