GOH KAI JUN KIE170027 PERSONAL REFELCTION

Self-Reflection and Journal by
GOH KAI JUN
KIE170027

As a second-year undergraduate student of Electrical Engineering, we are going to take Social Engagement course in this semester which is our Semester 2 2018/19. Social Engagement is a university course which every university student is compulsory to take this. This course is a course or an opportunity for a university student to involve and participate in a community or society. Hence, when I was going to take this course, my mind is am I going to help society like visiting old folks or orphan and maybe cook for them or play with them. I think that it is going to be fun since we can spread our positive energy and love to them besides let them understand that there is someone in this world who took care of them. But all this is only my imagination.

During our briefing day of Social Engagement, all of us were distributed equally into a few groups. My group is Group 14 which there are 11 of us in this group. After that, the lecturer just introduced us a few tasks that we can go for it for our social engagement. Unexpectedly, our group was assigned to join a Beyond Engineering Innovation Challenge (BEGIN Challenge) which is one of the great event introduced by Malaya Electrical Students Association (MESA). BEGIN Challenge is organized by Tuanku Bahiyah Residential College (KK2) in collaboration with Faculty of Engineering, Universiti of Malaya. This event is quite meaningful to all of us especially to those participants who are secondary students.

      The objectives for BEGIN Challenge are:

• To produce who can think critically
• To instil creativity and innovative capabilities of students
• To provide a chance to students in creating new sustainable and user-friendly products by utilizing existing resources
• To instil the spirit of innovation among students in upper secondary schools directly and students in University of Malaya indirectly

Since there were a lot of secondary schools participating in this event, our group was chosen to be the mentor for SMK Tropicana. We will help them in the aspect of our knowledge gained throughout our course in university as well as experiences in participating in some competitions before.

Day 1 - Opening Ceremony in Universiti Malaya

During Day 1 which is the BEGIN Challenge briefing day and their opening ceremony, this is the first day we met them. They are very friendly and cannot wait to tell us their idea. Their idea is going to protect animals from leaving out a protected area. They called their prototype and project as SMART PLANTATION FENCING FOR ANIMAL DETECTION.  After discussing some of the ways, providing them some guidelines and giving out some opinions as well as comments to them during their meal time, they were provided a lab tour in our Faculty of Engineering, so for the lab tour session, my groupmates will in charge of it, which guiding them and helping BEGIN Challenge committee to gather the participants as well as teach them some of the lab information. 

Their idea to BEGIN Challenge

Our meal time and discussion about their prototype

Day 2 - First discussion in SMK Tropicana

After that, we discussed the actual and most suitable time for us to have a visit to their school with their teacher, Madam Khor throughout Whatsapp and finally have a visit to their school. During that day (Day 2), after our class time, we gather at our department at 2pm and depart to their school. First and foremost, they explained more detail about their ideas so that we can provide them correct guidelines. On that day, we helped them in the programming part, their circuit analysis as well as the container fabrication. For the programming part, we introduced them Arduino programming which is easier to learn and capable of their prototype. Hence, there are some of our programming expert teammates to guide them and teach them how the Arduino works. Meanwhile, Dr. Daivd who is our lecturer from our department came along with us and taught them some proper ways and what to buy for their circuit of Arduino part with our group members. Besides, for the container fabrication, our mentor, Dr.Suhana introduced binding those acrylic board using chloroform which is corrosive. Hence, we used the chloroform in their school lab carefully with gloves and mask. 

Our Day 2 with them in their school lab

Day 3 - Second discussion in SMK Tropicana

On that day which is Wednesday, they spent their co-curriculum time with us. They brought us to the meeting room of SMK Tropicana. That day, our mentor, Dr. Suhana called her master student, Mr. Jahangir, who is studying Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Malaya helped us to provide more advanced opinions to the team. On that day, they bought a set of Arduino and some relays from internet, so we were trying to help them to solve their problem in the programming part which is Arduino since they cannot get the correct results after investigating on it a few days. During guiding them, we found that they are passionate to learn all these new knowledge which they cannot get it from textbooks. They were willing to learn it and paid a lot of effort in learning a new programming skill by themselves, which is quite useful in their future. We provided them some short-form in their programming part since they used a long programming writing which will cause their result to receive slower. Besides that, some of our teammates teach them about the way for them to present their idea to those judges on the competition day. 

Our second discussion with the team

Day 4 - Competition Day and Closing Ceremony

After preparing for so long time, finally, the competition day had come. On that day, every team was given a booth which they can put their prototype and their ideas on the table. All the university students were allowed and welcomed to have a visit to their booth. Before the competition is going to start, we met the team and wish them good luck, as well as help them to check the prototype is working or not, fortunately, everything went smoothly on that day. Around 10am on that day, the judging session was begun. Every judge will have a visit to every team's booth and asking them some questions from them. Then, the closing ceremony was started and our team, SMK Tropicana won First Runner-up in this competition. Our team was shocked and feeling happy for them. I was like finally, their effort and hard work were paid off. All the time we spent on them was worthy and I was glad that I can be one of the mentors to this team. I believe that these four boys from SMK Tropicana have a bright future ahead of them. They must be leaders and good examples of their juniors in their school.

 The competition day

 Judging session

The prize-giving ceremony

Throughout the whole BEGIN Challenge with SMK Tropicana team, although this task for Social Engagement is not in my expectation, I felt I was lucky since I can involve in this challenge which collaborates with my faculty. I gained some experiences in involving myself in this challenge and strengthened up pieces of knowledge about my courses especially my programming part and circuit analysis as well as connecting a circuit. This is a chance for me to learn some new skills since I have to learn it first before providing the team with good guidance. Besides that, the effort and hard work paid by SMK Tropicana inspired me to learn and participate in this kind of competition since it helps you to gain different experiences and explore more knowledges regarding the projects. I believed that this knowledge will be of a benefit for me in my career in the future. In addition to that, I believed that this is also an opportunity to build up a relationship between UM students and secondary schools. We can expose ourselves by providing a lot of good advice and guidance to secondary students and at the same time, inspire and impress them so that they may wish to study in UM in their future.