SSU won its 2nd award in the National Invention Contest and Exhibits (NICE) in the Creative Research – Sibol (Student) category held last July 28-31, 2016 at the MOA-SMX in Pasay City. The project entitled “Obstacle detection and evasion system for visually impaired people” initially with original design by Corazon Curiano, Leandro Ilao, Arwel Royanduyan and Shiela Uy was enhanced by Raven Tabiongan with their adviser John Alvin Macariola.
To compete in the national tilt, one must hurdle the Regional Invention Contest and Exhibit (RICE) which is held a year before NICE. Both events are conducted once every two years. This is the third time that SSU represented Eastern Visayas Region in the national competition. NICE has several categories and SSU has joined in three, namely; Utility Model, Creative Research (Sibol) and Creative Research (Likha). In 2014 NICE, SSU have competed in the three categories mentioned while in the 2012 and 2016, it only competed in the Sibol category and both won. For the 2017, it hoped to expnad its areas of competition specially on Invention and Creative Design Categories.