UPM's winning device puts drivers to the test

Championing road safety: (From left) Nurul Faqihah, Kiang, Siti Aishah, Mas Athirah and Nurul Syamilah won over the judges with their “Anti-Drunk and Sleep Detector”.

ROAD accidents happen for a number of reasons including drink driving and dozing off behind the wheel.

Tasked with designing road safety interventions, an all-girls’ team from Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) zoomed in on these two common causes and came up with an “Anti-Drunk and Sleep Detector”.

Their innovative solution saw them being named the national champion at the #ShellSelamatSampai Varsity Challenge 2021, beating four other finalist teams from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka and Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman.

Nurul Faqihah Hambali, Kiang Fei Yi, Siti Aishah Husna, Mas Athirah Mohd Hisban and Nurul Syamilah Azman – who made up Team Salvus, which means safe in Latin – created a device that identifies drunk drivers or drivers who are prone to dozing off while driving.

This device serves to detect the alcohol and oxygen levels of a driver to indicate if the driver is in the right condition to drive.

The prototype.

Themed “Innovating Towards Safer Roads for Everyone”, the competition, which was open to all tertiary students in Malaysia, was aimed at empowering youths to incorporate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in proposing innovative solutions to mitigate road safety issues.

“Road safety is a concern in Malaysia and many other countries in the world. The World Health Organisation records approximately 1.3 million fatalities each year due to road traffic crashes.

“At Shell, we are seeking to reduce road accidents in the country by empowering our youths to use technology to design innovative interventions to prevent road-related accidents,” Shell Malaysia chairman Ivan Tan said in a press release dated Jan 20.

With their win, Team Salvus said they hoped to see their invention being used by Malaysians towards creating a safer journey for everyone on the road.

“We want to thank Shell Malaysia for introducing the NXplorers initiative, which exposed us to new thinking tools and problem-solving methodologies that played an important role in the implementation of our project,” they said in the press release.

Introduced in 2017, the #ShellSelamatSampai Varsity Challenge has contributed in nurturing brilliant young minds across Malaysia to propose out-of-the-box ideas to help improve road safety conditions.

It won the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award in 2020.