Computer engineer students develop air-drying machine for tuyo production

A group of computer engineering students developed an air-drying machine that would speed up the production of salted dried fish or tuyo, a popular staple food among Filipinos.

It took five months for the students of STI College Ortigas-Cainta to develop what they call the “Dry-Pish”.

“During our interview nalaman po namin na hindi po pala dapat ma-expose yung isda sa ulan and kailangan din po na consistent na maarawan yung isda para matuyo po siya agad,” said Timothy John Dela Cruz in the Game Changer segment of 24 Oras on Monday.

(During our interview we found out that it’s not good to expose the fish to rain and it’s very important that the fish are constantly under the sun so it will quickly dry.)

“Yung next problem is yung mga peste po doon sa pinagtutuyuan niya dahil open area nga raw po,” he added. Lastly po, dahil nga raw po traditional yung ginagawa nila yung pag-determine nila kung kelan pwedeng i-retrieve yung isda or ‘pag tuyo na po ito is through manually lang po, hinihipo lang po nila.”

(Among the problems in the drying process are pests because the drying process is done out in the open. Lastly, tuyo makers do things traditionally and manually determine if the fish are already dried.)

According to the students, Dry-Pish is an arduino-based air-drying machine that has a real-time probe moisture sensing and can also filter the pungent smell coming from the fish.

The device features two drying racks where the fresh fish are placed. It also has heating rods and a fan to speed up the drying process.

Dry-Pish also has a light indicator which serves as a guide on what step of the drying process is already taking place.

“For now po two kilos pa lang po yung pwede namin isalang. Pero hopefully in the future po is maparami pa po namin siya at mapalaki pa po,” said student Menris Domingo.

(For now, our machine can only handle two kilos of fish. Hopefully we can increase its capacity and increase the size of the machine in the future.) —Vince Angelo Ferreras/RF, GMA Integrated News