UiTM’s feat at design competition

UNDERGRADUATE researchers from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) made their varsity proud at the recent Innovate Malaysia Design Competition (IMDC) 2016 by winning several awards and prizes.

IMDC is a multi-discipline engineering design competition for engineering or computer science students organised by a group of multinationals here - Altera, Intel, Keysight, Mathworks, Microsoft, Motorola, National Instruments, Silterra and Vitrox - with Dreamcatcher Consulting as the secretariat supported by TalentCorp, MDEC and various government and professional bodies.

A unique entry featuring a group of students from two different faculties won the first prize in the Keysight Technologies Industry Track Award.

The team, comprising Faculty of Electrical Engineering students Ahmad Safuan Che Mohammad Som, Ahmad Jazlan Jamil, and Faculty of Applied Sciences student Syahrol Zamzuri, combined engineering and biology elements to create an electrochemical biosensing measurement system for cancer gene detection.

They won the judges over by proving that cancer marker detection could be done using components at a fraction of the cost of standard laboratory equipment.

Another team from UiTM’ Faculty of Electrical Engineering, comprising Nur Shima Abdul Aziz, Mohd Amin Khusyairi Othman and Nur Alya Ahmad, took home cash and smartphones by creating a non-invasive breath test to monitor ketone levels in diabetics.

For its effort, the team was second in the Microsoft Track Award and emerged third in the MDEC IoT award.

The consolation prize for the Intel Track Awards went to Electrical Engineering students Mohamad Amirul Hafiz Mohd Zahli, Nuraini Kamarudin and Nor Zuraida Marzuki for showing a tele-rehabilitation system that allows patients to exercise at home while being monitored remotely.

The smart recreational shoe designed by Faculty of Mechanical Engineering students Muhammad Anis Aizat Abdul Aziz, Mohamad Fairus Ismail and Muhammad Iqbal Mohd Ali earned them the National Instruments Track Award consolation prize.

There were more than 200 group entries from 29 public and private institutions of higher learning in this year’s competition.