KUCHING: SMK DPHA Gapor and SMK St Teresa yesterday emerged as winners in the upper secondary and lower secondary school categories of the Sarawak Community Innovation Engineering Competition Exhibition (SCIENCE).
SMK DPHA Gapor won the upper secondary category for its Smart Home Assistant invention while SMK St Teresa won the lower secondary category for its Green Box project. Both schools walked away with a cash prize worth RM750, medals and certificates each.
Apart from that, Lodge International School Kuching came in second for its Blackout Alert System in the upper secondary category while SMK St Mary Kuching finished third for its Clear Bin project.
In the lower secondary category, Lodge International Kuching secured the second place for its Bluetooth Enabled Smart Home project and Tun Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang College Miri was awarded third place for its Intelligent Room project.
The second and third place winners for both categories went home with medals, certificates and cash prizes worth RM500 and RM250 respectively.
The prize giving and closing ceremony was officiated by the Sarawak Energy Group chief operating officer, Lu Yew Hung yesterday here at The Hills Shopping Mall here.
The second edition of SCIENCE organised by Sarawak Energy in collaboration with The Learning Curve (TLC) was a two-day exhibition in conjunction with the National Science Week held from Aug 17 to 18.
Lu stated that SCIENCE was a signature programme under Powering Young Minds and was developed with The Learning Curve in providing a platform for students to have early exposure to science, technology, engineering and mathematics or STEM and its practical application.
“It is important to develop technological competencies and create interests in young minds. Our participants have been provided with training and smart home kits to prepare them for SCIENCE and they have been working on their projects themed “Smart Home & Future Living” since March.
“The results are what we see at SCIENCE these past two days – impressive projects including those engineered to light up rural communities such as the Indoor Sunlight System, Smart Home System, and Renewable Hybrid Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS),” he said.
Lu added that he was positive that these innovative projects would become actual products at homes in Sarawak and elsewhere in the future.
He revealed that in the spirit of continuous innovation, Sarawak Energy and The Learning Curve were also developing a new Powering Young Minds programme which would be The Sarawak Energy Electric Vehicle (EV) Challenge.
To be held for the first time next year, the challenge will bring together students to compete in building the most energy efficient electric vehicle.
A total 300 creative and scientific young minds from 36 schools from Kuching, Betong, Mukah, Bintulu and Miri formed 80 teams to showcase engineering projects in line with theme of the exhibition, “Smart Home & Future Living.”
Apart from that, they also collaborated to design, programme and assemble their respective project submissions over the last six months.
Also present at the prize giving and closing ceremony were Sarawak Energy Corporate Communication general manager, Peing Tajang and The Learning Curve founder, Kenneth Chai.
