Undergraduate students from Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) have swept the highest number of awards in the 4th National STEM & Innovative Challenge (NSIDC) during the prize presentation ceremony.
Present as the Guest of Honour at the virtual event was Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Awang Hj Hamzah bin Sulaiman, Minister of Education.
A total of fourty-six teams from secondary schools and higher education institutions participated in two categories namely Formula One Junior Class Category (for secondary school students) and Formula One Senior Class Category (for students of Sixth Form, Technical & Vocational Centres and Higher Education Institutions). The teams competed in the race (car racing) challenge for three days from 29 July to 2 August 2021 which took place at PAP Hjh Masna Secondary School.
The winning teams from Faculty of Engineering and School of Design were comprised of two teams namely Team Pahlawan XXI and Team Wira. Throughout the competition, the teams were supervised under Pg Dr Seri Rahayu binti Pg Ya’akub, Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering programme area along with its technicians.
Attending as the Head of Judge representing UTB for the competition was Dr. Ahmad Syamaizar bin Haji Ahmad Sabli, Dean of School of Design.
In Formula One Senior Class Category, Team Pahlawan XXI bagged First Place Overall Champion, Best Engineered Car, Best Verbal Presentation, and Fastest Car Award. Team Wira also took home the Second Runner Up Overall Champion.
One of the main aims of this challenge was to gather students to compete using 21st century skills in the academic version of Formula 1 (F1) adapted from the F1 in Schools. By utilising the design and creative arts processes that replicate real F1 cars, students were challenged to produce F1 mini cars through the use of software such as Autodesk Inventors, Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) equipment.
The NSIDC is an annual national competition organised by Science Technology Environment Partnership (STEP) Centre, Ministry of Education, where participations were opened to government secondary schools, vocational and technical institutions, and higher learning institutions, which have been supplied with DENFORD machines.
