SINGAPORE: Seven teams from six universities in Malaysia will be competing in the Shell Eco-marathon (SEM) global programme that's regarded as one of the world’s longest-running student competitions.
The programme challenges the minds of students in terms of design and requires them to build an ultra-energy-efficient vehicle that will be pitted against the rest.
The teams, comprising of 115 students to represent Malaysia, include Monash University Malaysia (two teams), Multimedia University Melaka Campus, Universiti Malaya, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman and University Malaysia Pahang.
Team UiTM Eco-Planet
The programme is part of this year's Future Singapore festival that will see over 120 students from 18 countries from across Asia Pacific and the Middle East converge on the island.
Last year, team UiTM Eco-Sprint from emerged as champions for the fourth consecutive year and will be succeeded by Team UiTM Eco-Planet which will be competing in the Hydrogen category.
Team UiTM Eco-Planet is a female empowered initiative and this year, the team has 13 female engineers to further develop and design their entry.
Team UiTM Eco-Planet
The free festival celebrates bright energy ideas and innovations from across Asia while focusing on offering virtual reality as well as hands-on experiences to understand what is happening currently when powering our world and a glimpse of what the future of energy might look like.
To participate in SEM, each team will design and test their energy efficient vehicles, therefore, exposing them to the investigative skills of science, analytical skills of mathematics and inventive skills of engineering.
This is very much like the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) principle which is designed to provide students with the opportunity to investigate information provided to them in order to understand it based on their own experiences; also known as contextual learning.
Team UMP-Tech
This is also in line with the Malaysian government’s aspiration for Transformasi National 2050 (TN50), to help drive Malaysia’s vision to be among the top 20 nations recognised for creativity and innovation.
This year Team Monash UC will be introducing cruise control technology, as well as their own driver assist system to calculate the ideal steering angle when turning corners to ensure their urban concept car does not lose momentum and maintain an even and efficient burn of Hydrogen throughout the race.
First time participants University Malaysia Pahang, were successful at the qualifiers and will be travelling down to Singapore for their first Shell Eco Marathon Asia race.
Team UMP-Tech
UMP-Tech have set-up a dedicated Facebook link and videos to share their journey to Singapore.
https://www.facebook.com/semaump2018/
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“Shell Eco Marathon (SEM) Asia is a key platform for developing and nurturing youths in the areas of science, technology, engineering and energy fields. It also serves as an avenue for our Malaysian bright and future talents to discover ways of bringing their ideas to life by challenging their young minds to innovate and embrace a smart sustainable future. Shell Malaysia is proud to be partnering the students and universities to showcase Malaysian ideas and capabilities at this platform,” said Shell Malaysia country head of external relations Nimmi Kamal.
