Encouraging creativity and innovation

UNIVERSITY of Malaya’s UMCares – The Community & Sustainability Centre with MR. DIY Trading Sdn Bhd, had the “DIY Made Simple – Rock your School with DIY” competition recently.

The programme, which was held for the second time at the university, aimed to encourage creativity and innovation among students while developing their soft skills such as communication, teamwork and leadership.

A team of eight students from SMK Tun Perak won the first prize of RM4,500 in cash, RM1,000 MR. DIY vouchers, a trophy and a certificate.

The students created a roof over an empty space between the Academic and Laboratory building of their school using plastic bottles. The students stayed back after school hours, sometimes until the night and over weekends, to finish the project and their hard work paid off.

“We really did not expect to win,” said Kishenthra who led the team. “We are all excited to get first place.”

Kishenthra said they came up with the idea to recycle plastic bottles to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide, and used about 4,000 bottles to create the roof while PVC pipes were used for the structure.

The competition is divided into two categories. The first is open to secondary school students while the other is open to training teachers at Institut Pendidikan Guru Kampus Pendidikan Teknik (IPG KPT).

The competition required participants to design for the improvement of an infrastructure or any space in their school using the do-it-yourself method.

MR.DIY’s head of marketing Andy Chin said the idea behind organising the competition is to uncover talent, creativity and innovation among school students.

“We sponsored RM78,800 for the competition, including the UM Tropical Camp, which was held two days before the competition,” Chin said. He hopes the competition would become a catalyst among youths to embrace the do-it-yourself culture.

UMCares - The Community and Sustainability Centre director Prof Dr Norzulaani Khalid said 47 schools participated but only eight were selected.

However, she said all participants are winners and she is confident they have gained valuable knowledge and experience through this programme.