Curtin comes in second at plug-in competition

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(From left) Chang, Rohan, Nur Hanani, Masshiela and Julius are seen at the grand finale.

(Second left) Curtin Sarawak School of Engineering and Science dean Professor Michael Cloke receives the trophy from Masshiela. Also seen from left are Curtin Sarawak Applied Geology Department head Dr Ramasamy Nagarajan, Nur Hanani and Chang.

MIRI: Five Curtin University Sarawak students came in second for the inaugural Schlumberger Ocean Plug-in Competition 2013 in Kuala Lumpur.

The School of Engineering and Science students won RM7,000 and medals for their 3DModelPDF plug-in.

Team DevPet comprising Applied Geology students Masshiela Ahmad and Julius Stephen, computer system and networking student Nur Hanani Ahmad Shukri and petroleum engineering students Ian Chang and Rohan Vijapurapu were among six teams from five universities chosen to compete in the final round.

Masshiela said the team’s plug-in allows users to export their 3D models to non-editable PDF format, which can be viewed by rotating and zooming.

“Joining the competition was a great experience for us. It was very challenging for us given the time constraints and our lack of knowledge in petrel and C#, but we managed to pull through and even completed our plug-in ahead of time, scoring five extra points for early submission in the process,” she said.

Team NoNiT from UCSI University came in first with their TesWell plug-in while Universiti Malaya and Universiti Teknologi Petronas tied for third place with their Petrel SMS and Seismic Image Tool plug-ins respectively.

More than 30 teams from Malaysian and Singaporean tertiary institutions participated in the software development contest, which was the first of its kind to be held in Malaysia.

By using Schlumberger’s Petrel software and Ocean framework, the students were required to build an innovative oil and gas software application (plug-in).

They were given six months to create their plug-in, which was judged by a panel of judges from the industry.