Preparing students for careers in STEM fields
A TOTAL of 288 teams from primary and secondary schools nationwide participated in the recent National Level Rero Robotics and Coding Competition (RAC19) held at Nilai University.
The two-day event was jointly organised by Nilai University and Cytron Technologies, a Penangbased company that designs and manufactures educational robotics kits. Endorsed by the Education Ministry, this competition is a joint public-private-academia initiative in support of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)’s #mydigitalmaker movement, which aims to transform Malaysian youth from digital users to producers in the digital economy.
The Faculty of Engineering, Science and Technology (FEST) at Nilai University fully supports the nation’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiatives in introducing robotics and coding.
These are essential skills to prepare students for careers in STEM fields such as engineers, technologists, scientists, computer analysts, doctors and medical specialists. The students must be ready for upcoming automation where new jobs requiring programming skills will be created.
The competition was attended by more than a thousand people. Thirty students from FEST, Nilai University, volunteered to provide guidance and leadership to all the junior participants. The students had the opportunity to establish further networks within the industry.
Cytron Technologies head of Rero EDUteam Cheryl Ng said this is the fourth year they have run the competition.
“It is part of the company’s outreach initiative to bring robotics and coding to the masses,” she said.
Earlier this year, the team went to each state to conduct training for teachers. After the workshop, teachers were provided with modules and resources to train their students.
A total of 884 teams competed in RAC19 state-level competitions, which took place in July this year.
The state-level gold and silver award winners then proceeded to battle it out at the national level.
On the first day, 97 primary school teams competed in the Live Coding Challenge with rero:micro category while 43 secondary school teams contested in the Live Coding Challenge with rero Jr category. Another 148 secondary school teams competed in the Live Coding Challenge with rero:micro category on the second day.
During the competition, participants were required to programme their robots on the spot to complete a set of tasks.
In the preliminary round, they were assigned five coding tasks at increasing levels of difficulty. For the finals, qualifying teams were further challenged to solve another more challenging programming task plus math equations. Winners were determined based on the successful completion of each task.
Out of 97 participating teams that took part in the Live Coding Challenge with rero:micro (Primary) category, two teams from SJK (C) Connaught, Kuala Lumpur, bagged both the championship title and first runner-up, while the second runner-up title went to the SJK (C) Chung Hua No.1 team from Sarawak. The champion team for the Live Coding Challenge with rero Jr (Secondary) category came from MasterMind Educational Centre, Johor. Teams from SMK Tinggi Batu Pahat, Johor secured both the first and second runners-up titles in this category.
The team from Sekolah Seri Cahaya, Shah Alam, emerged as champion in the Live Coding Challenge with rero:micro (Secondary) category, followed by teams from SMK Datuk Patinggi Haji Abdul Gapor, Sarawak (first runner up) and SMK Tun Abdul Razak, Sarawak (second runner up).
In his closing speech, the ministry’s Sports, Co-curriculum and Arts Division director Zainal Abas congratulated all the teams for their participation in this competition and thanked all teachers and parents for their full support.
He further commended the public-private-academia collaboration in nurturing students’ interest in STEM education and equipping them with essential skills for the future workplace.
Nilai University is actively involved in various community projects with other higher learning institutions and corporations to promote STEM education among primary and secondary school students.
The university will be participating in the upcoming Kuala Lumpur Engineering Science Fair (KLESF) and Pesta Sains Negri Sembilan in November.
“We hope that through these events, we will be able to reach out to more students and spark their interest in STEM education.
“In the forthcoming KLESF, FEST will organise activities to promote recycling,” said Nilai University School of Engineering and Technology principal lecturer Mah Siew Kien, who is also the organising chairperson for this competition.
For more information about Nilai University and its programmes in the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, visit www.nilai.edu.my or Facebook page (@NilaiUniversity). Nilai University offers scholarships of up to 100% for all science and business-related programmes.