Mr. Jitwattana Boonlert, Head of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bangsaphan Vocational College Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, together with students have begun the production of Durian maturity and ripeness testing pen.
This innovation is 100 percent accurate and has won provincial awards and the Central Region Champions and has received a national outstanding innovation award in the contest of new generation inventions 2018. At present, students have helped to produce 80 Durian ripeness pens, which are handmade but not yet sold in the market because it is in the process of applying for a patent; which is a long procedure and it will also register the rights with the Department of Intellectual Property.
The media in China and Malaysia have written and published information about the product demonstrating great interest. When patents and registration is completed, the price will be set at 3,900 baht per piece and will be sold only for those who pre-order. It is believed however that when sold in the market, there may be merchants copying the product to sell at a cheaper price because the internal mechanisms are not complicated.
The product, a hypodermic syringe, pierces the durian and is able to record the results immediately. The device will determine the scale of durian ripeness over 3 levels: red means raw durian, yellow means half-ripe and green ripe durian. All testing has demonstrated 100 percent accuracy.
