As Distinction winners for the MOE Innovation Programme in MGS, our group was Nominated to participate in the Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors’ Award 2025 (Open Category)
Tired of fighting for seats at crowded hawker centres?
I’m Audrey, and I’m super excited to share a project my friends Anna, Caitlyn, Jubilee and I worked on as Primary 6 students from Methodist Girls' School.
We came up with a solution to a very real problem in Singapore’s hawker centres - chronic seating shortages. Did you know that 83% of Singaporeans visit hawker centres at least once a week, and there are over 13,000 stalls across the country? Yet, so many seats go unused because people place their bags on extra chairs. This makes it harder for others to find a place to sit, especially during peak hours.
To help solve this, we invented the Extendable Hawker Chair - a sturdy wooden chair with a hidden slide-out platform where people can keep their bags and belongings, without taking up extra seats. It’s a small change which greatly helps preserve the comfort and communal spirit of hawker dining, which is such an important part of our culture. In fact, our hawker culture has even been recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage!
I hope you enjoy our video on how something simple can help make everyday life better for everyone :)
