A groundbreaking international study has revealed how a simple soil nutrient, phosphorus, holds the key to helping sweetpotato plants produce more and bigger roots, the very roots that millions of families in the Philippines across the globe rely on for food and income. 

Visayas State University, through its Faculty of Computing (VSU-FOC), is joining forces with the Mechatronics and Robotics Society of the Philippines (MRSP) to co-host the 7th International Conference on Automation, Mechatronics, and Robotics (ICAMEROB 2025). 

The VSU Civil Engineering students have built Visquake, a low-cost earthquake simulator that demonstrates how buildings respond to seismic activities.  This small-scale innovation gives students and future engineers the rare chance to see earthquake principles in action.