Pushing the limits

> Toh Yew Jin is a Manufacturing Engineer at Spirit AeroSystems

WHILE most children take greater care of their toys, young Toh Yew Jin's favourite pastime was to take his toy cars apart. He would then examine its inner workings to understand how it was built. ''Oftentimes, I forget how to put it back together!'' recalled the 23-year old engineer who now works with Spirit AeroSystems, a leading aerostructure manufacturer operating across France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Malaysia.

Yew Jin's exploratory fun soon blossomed into a hobby – incessantly tinkering with remote controlled cars and modifying them with improved parts to increase their performance. ''Looking back, I did not realise that I was already fully engaged in a simple form of engineering,'' he said.

It was during a visit to the neighbourhood car service centre that piqued the interest of Yew Jin to learn more about cars. ''I developed a strong passion for cars in my late secondary school years. Whenever my parents needed to take our car to the workshop, I would accompany them so I could have a closer look at the engines being disassembled.''

Despite the regular visits to the workshop, it was not enough to satisfy his curiosity. ''Even after looking at the nuts and bolts, I was still unable to grasp how a reciprocating metal half-cylinder (a piston) becomes the beating heart that would power an engine. This developed into a strong desire to understand how engines work which ultimately fuelled my decision to pursue automotive engineering at Southampton University Malaysia Campus.''

Yew Jin spent the first two years of the mechanical engineering degree at the Malaysia Campus and the final two years on the Highfield Campus in Southampton, UK. Last year in July, he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Mechanical Engineering, specialising in automotive engineering.