Team Sia Yew Wei (left) and Kho Yea Shiuan from Curtin won top prize at Innovate Sarawak and Innovate Malaysia Design Competitions 2020.
MIRI: Teams from Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia) recently won multiple awards in Innovate Sarawak Open Design Competition and Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2020.
Fourth-year electrical power engineering undergraduate Sia Yew Wei and second-year civil and construction engineering undergraduate Kho Yea Shiuan won first prize in Mobile, Web & Others Category of the Innovate Sarawak Design Competition.
Their project ‘Novel Full Battery Charging Capabilities for Quasi Z-source Inverter’, is a cost-efficient converter/inverter built in single-stage topology under the supervision of electrical and computer engineering senior lecturer Dr Law Kah Haw.
The runner-up in the same category comprised Curtin’s team of fourth-year electrical power engineering undergraduate Kee Kia Wei, third-year electrical and electronics engineering undergraduate John Julius Danker Khoo and second-year electrical and electronics engineering undergraduate Koh Say Kit with ‘Building Information System (BIS)’ supervised by associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Dr Garenth Lim.
Innovate Sarawak Open Design Challenge sponsored by Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) and the state Ministry of Education, Science, Science and Technological Research (MESTR) was open to undergraduates of universities in Sarawak.
Sia and Kho’s project also won first place in Keysight Track in Innovate Malaysia Design Competition and IEM Best Paper Award.
Innovate Malaysia Design Competition is the largest design competition in Malaysia for third and final-year undergraduates to promote innovative culture in engineering design work, tackle real-world problems with practical engineering solutions, and churn out the brightest talents for product development, further research, and commercialisation. Technology companies including Amazon Web Services, Intel, Keysight, Microsoft and SilTerra work together to co-organise the competition.
“It was a great honour to be able to participate in both competitions. It was an important step in my journey as a student and brought me one step closer to my goal of becoming a researcher,” said Sia.
Kho added that their project showed the advantage of controller-enabled engineering in the design of power converters that can be integrated with renewable energy to cope with the world’s high demand for electrical energy.
Another Curtin’s team who came in third in Intel Track for ‘AI Personal Assistant Sports Supervision (AI-PASS)’comprised fourth-year electronic and communication engineering undergraduate Tay Chuan Zhi, third-year electronic and communication engineering undergraduate Kavin Chelvan Sylvestyne Kathiravan and third-year electrical and electronic engineering undergraduate Nurul Ain Hamizan.
Meanwhile, two third-year computer systems and networking systems Curtin undergraduates Thien Kian Chung and Nurul Fatihan Mohd Fadii won the consolation prize in the Intel Track.
Congratulating the teams for their stellar performance, Dr Lim said Curtin Malaysia teams who consistently win the state and national-level competitions have shown that the university’s electrical, electronic and computer engineering and technology programmes are top-notch.
“I always encourage our undergraduates to view competitions as motivation to address problems and issues faced by society using the knowledge and skills they have acquired not just as platforms to win accolades,” he stated, adding that competitions are great ways to put what they have learned into practical applications.