120 pupils participate in Nextsparks Junior Innovate 2018 competition
KUCHING: A total of 60 teams comprising 120 pupils from 18 primary schools took part in this year’s Nextsparks Junior Innovate 2018 competition for Sarawak Southern Zone at Saradise Innovation Space here yesterday.
The competition was jointly organised by Saradise Innovation Sdn Bhd and Chumbaka. Each team consists of two pupils.
The participating primary schools were from Kuching, Padawan and Kota Samarahan.
“It is really amazing what a child can do when they are given the opportunity to think outside the box and to be able to express themselves through innovation,” Saradise Group Chief Executive Officer Dato Chris Chung said in his welcoming speech at the competition. The competition was part of Saradise Innovation initiative, NextSparks.
Chung said that the competition was organised to inspire digital creative mindset among the pupils. A two-day train-theteachers session was conducted in May to prepare 40 teachers to train their students in taking part in the competition.
Besides hosting the competition, Saradise also donated 100 sets of Arduino learning kits to the participating schools in order to assist them in the competition.
Chung said that Saradise Innovation Space was established to provide a platform in nurturing the latest thinking in innovation. He thanked the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research, Sarawak Multimedia Authority, Chumbaka, Tegas, the district education office, teachers, headmasters and the parents for supporting the competition.
Only 8 teams qualified for the final round of the pitching.
The panel of judges for the final round of pitching were Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research deputy permanent secretary Dr Abdul Rahman Deen, Dr Khairul Hafiz Sharkawi from Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA), Wong Ching Ning from Titanium and Andy Chong from Saradise.
Teams that won the gold medal were Iresha Wonderland, Hackers of Toys (H.O.T), The Real Ikea and St Paul B while the silver medallists were Jots, Big Brainos, Alexa the Alarm Teddy Bear and Let’s Roll.
Incredible Trio, Team Awesome, St3 3, A.I. Creative, Rakyaters C, Rakyaters A, Rakyeters B and Creative Tech teams won the bronze medals.
Gold and silver medallists will proceed to compete at the statelevel competition that will be held on Oct 6 at Saradise Innovation Space.
Winners of the state-level competition will then compete at the national finals which will be held on Nov 10-11 in Penang in conjunction with Penang International Science Fair 2018.
Saradise Innovation Sdn Bhd is currently offering classes on CR8 robotics, Arduino and 3D printing.
It is situated at Level 2 Block A1 of Saradise Kuching. For more information, members of the public are to contact Andy Chong at andy.chong@saradise. com.my