Brainstorming pays off for Utar team at design contest

A TRIO of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) final-year students beat 71 other teams to win the first Science, Techno­logy and Innovation Ministry’s (MOSTI) Innovate Malaysia Award at an engineering design competition in Penang.

The team comprising Gan Yu Han, Vincent Cheah and Gan Guo Dong, all aged 23, also bagged the first place in the Intel category of Atom Processor Platform.

Their winning project at Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2011 was entitled ‘Electric Car Intelligent Controller System’.

Guo Dong said that their system combined innovation and infotainment.

Yu Han said his team had brainstorming sessions to come up with a system that would be beneficial to people.

“We discussed with friends and watched videos on YouTube for ideas,” said Cheah.

For their win, the engineering students walked away with RM5,000 and an Intel Atombased netbook each.

The team is now looking to collaborate with a sponsor on future projects.

The other two category winners were another Utar team comprising Chia Kok Siang and Cheng Chia Loon, both 24, (Agilent category) and the Multimedia University team of Lee Sue Han, 24, Siew Wei Heng and Chee Vi Ling, both 23, (Altera).

The competition was jointly organised by Agilent Technologies, Altera and Intel partnered with Dreamcatcher Consulting Sdn Bhd and supported by MOSTI and Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).

A total of 117 undergraduates who were in the final year of their engineering or computer science degree programme in 15 universities nationwide participated in the competition.

The competition which was launched in October last year was designed to coincide with the compulsory final-year project which is an integral part of the universities’ curriculum.

Every project conducted was based on one of the industrial platforms supported by Agilent Technologies, Altera and Intel which are electronic companies.

MDeC chief operating officer Ng Wan Peng said the idea for the competition was mooted last year by the three multi-national companies to help engineering students understand design platforms and products.

In his speech at the prize-giving ceremony at Altera Corporation on Saturday, Deputy Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Fadillah Yusof said the competition was a smart partnership that companies and universities should emulate.