KUCHING: Three students from SMK Lutong have made Sarawak proud when their team, Girl Code, emerged national champions in the Shell NXplorers Malaysia 2023.
They competed with five other school teams nationwide.
Shell NXplorers is Shell’s STEM-related competition which encourages teamwork to design and develop solutions to real-world problems within the nexus of food-water-energy.
Girl Code, made up of Nirelly Efua Nigel, Violete Sim and Ashley Saran Francis, came up with an invention called Compost Manager which is an E-Compost composting system designed to meticulously monitor both the conditions and progress of compost heaps.
With the integration of a user-friendly app, Compost-Mate simplifies the monitoring process, making it accessible to composting enthusiasts of all levels.
By providing real-time data on essential factors such as temperature, humidity, and aeration, the invention ensures that the composting process remains optimised for efficiency and effectiveness.
Country chair of Shell Malaysia and senior vice president of Upstream Malaysia Siti Sulaiman said it is inspiring to see students in the Shell NXplorers programme facing obstacles with resilience and collaborating to overcome them to leverage innovation in designing solutions that will potentially address the major global challenges the world faces.
“Their courage in challenging the norm and thinking critically towards a sustainable future demonstrates that our youth are instrumental in shaping a brighter future for our country,” she said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a member of the Girl Code said the team is honoured to be crowned the grand champion and thanked Shell for the valuable experience.
“The valuable lessons learnt in this programme has empowered us to look beyond the usual and delve deeper into real-life problems to come up with solutions, which we hope will bring a positive impact to our communities,” she said.
Six schools with two finalists each from Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak participated in the national finals after emerging state winners and runners-up at the state level of the Shell NXplorers Malaysia competition.
The finalist schools were SMK Pekan Telipok and SM All Saints from Sabah; SMK Bintulu and SMK Lutong from Sarawak and SMK Bandar Puncak Jalil and SMK Aminuddin Baki from Peninsular Malaysia.
A special prize for the Best Presenter went to Nichelle Essabelle James – a member of the team XO_Leiune – from SM All Saints for her eloquence and detailed explanation of her team’s invention.
With the support of the Ministry of Education, Shell NXplorers Malaysia worked with over 1000 secondary school students from 25 schools across Malaysia.
These students were given the opportunity to gain hands-on STEM learning, with a focus on technology.
