Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) Mechanical Engineering students from the Faculty of Engineering participated in the Formula One Senior Class Category of the 5th National STEM and Innovative Design Challenge (NSIDC) 2022-2023, where team Panglima Kilat proudly stood out as Overall Champion and team Kaminari bagged the First Runner Up Overall Champion in the competition. The prize-giving ceremony was held at the Multipurpose Hall of UTB. UTB students had triumphed in the competition for two series in a row since 2021.
Present as the Guest of Honour was Yang Mulia Awang Aliuddin bin Haji Abdul Rahman, Deputy Permanent Secretary (Core Education) Ministry of Education.
Twenty-three teams from secondary schools and higher educational institutions competed in two categories, namely Formula One Junior Class specifically for secondary school students, and Formula One Senior Class specifically for Sixth Form, Technical & Vocational Centres and Higher Educational Institutions students.
This challenge gathered students to compete using 21st century skills in the academic version of Formula 1 (F1) adapted from F1 in Schools. Students were challenged to create miniature F1 cars using software such as Autodesk Inventors, Computer-Aided Design (CAD), and Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) equipment to replicate real F1 cars. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Ultimate and Autodesk Flow Design were used to evaluate the performance and safety of the designed cars. In addition, the aerodynamics of model cars were tested using wind tunnel and smoke tunnel.
The NSIDC is an annual national competition organised by the Science Technology Environment Partnership (STEP) Centre, Ministry of Education, with participation opened to government secondary schools, vocational and technical institutions, and higher learning institutions, which have been supplied with DENFORD machines.
