Oxbridge Engineering Workshop @ KTJ

In the ungodly hours of Sunday morning, 10th March, the Grade 11 Physics class gathered at the IGBIS turnstiles. Why, you ask? An hour-long bus ride later to the middle of seemingly nowhere, we arrived at KTJ to participate in the annual Oxbridge Engineering Workshop.Organised by KTJ, the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Oxbridge Society of Malaysia, this workshop was aimed at highschool students that would potentially apply to universities to study engineering. We aspiring engineers rarely get any pre-university experience in engineering due to the high skill requirements of the field, so this was a great chance to challenge our theoretical knowledge and mingle with students from other schools.

                         

The IGBIS students were integrated into separate groups consisting of students from various other schools. Thrown together with little time to get to know the others, we were presented a task: build a crane to transport as many loads as possible in a three-minute time frame whilst navigating through ‘roads’ and over ‘buildings’. In addition, we had to design, build and program a motion sensor-based traffic light to stop the flow of traffic when the crane moved across roads, and to enable pedestrians to trigger the light and safely cross. We were given nearly four hours to complete the task. Sounds like plenty of time right? Wrong. There was a catch—many catches actually. Along with the challenge we were given several pages of rules that, if broken, would result in marks deducted. This made our already daunting task even harder.

Time passed quickly once the creation process started. Some of us worked on the electronics and traffic lights, some of us measured out our testing track, and others brainstormed innovative adaptations of the crane. Although many of us were new to dealing with electronics and moving models, we were able to work through tight spots together. There were also several Oxbridge and IET supervisors to help us, often by dropping us vague hints that got us thinking, or sometimes leaving us more confused than before. With time pressuring us, the last 20 minutes were perhaps the most productive, despite all my code for my group’s traffic light getting deleted 30 minutes before the time was up! All the groups managed to finish up just in time to present the best version of our creations that we could develop within four hours.

Judging took place group by group. We had a mere three minutes to demonstrate the work we had done in four hours. Some groups created the spitting image of a crane, whilst others were more innovative and turned their cranes into a crane-boom truck hybrid. The overall feeling of accomplishment, for us to be able to produce something so efficient within a few hours, was enough to leave us satisfied. Prizes and certificates were awarded afterwards for the Best Overall Team and the Most Innovative Team. This experience was not just something on our applications meant to impress universities, but something that helped us grow in our cooperative skills and apply our knowledge in real-life situations.

               

Written by,

Clarissa Teh |Grade 11