Engineering students innovative and excellent in Curtin Sarawak

MIRI, 21 March 2007 – The School of Engineering and Science of Curtin University of Technology Sarawak (Curtin Sarawak) once again show its dedication to their Engineering students in excellence in teaching and learning by taking an initiative to invite four senior engineers around Malaysia as speakers for the Senior Engineers Panel session which is open to all First Year Engineering students of Curtin Sarawak.

The guests speakers for the session consists of Engr. Harbans Singh from HSH Consult Sdn. Bhd., Engr. Kho Yok Chong from Dayang Enterprise, Engr. Lee Hung Sang from Sarawak Shell Berhad and Eng. Jeffrey Wong from JW Consortium Sdn Bhd.

The two hour session enables the engineers to share their experience in their respective field such as Engineering and Laws, Civil Engineering and Construction and Oil & Gas.

“I am happy to see a lot of students attending this session as I feel that it is very motivating and inspiring for the students to listen to the experienced engineers in their respective field,” shares Cheng Chin Fook, Lecturer for Discipline of Mechanical Engineering who organised the Senior Engineers Panel session.

“We are always proud of our engineering students because they always show their passion and innovative thinking in any projects given to them,” claimed Dr. Chua Han Bing, Associate Professor and Director of School of Engineering and Science.

Last year, four Curtin Sarawak students won the first prize and second prize for the Sarawak Open Source Competition which was held in Kuching. The competition is the State Government’s initiative to encourage the community to adopt or develop solutions suing Open Source Software as a cheaper alternative.

One of the software programme that helped Lai Chiong Ching that grabbed the first prize was his invention of the “File Injection and Retrieval Application version 2” (FIRA2). The FIRA2 is a file steganography – an encryption application written in java script that compress or hides text messages into bitmap image files.

“We are grateful to our lecturers for their guidance on sustainable development,” expressed David Wong Liang Tai, one of the three students who walked away with RM3,000 for second prize in their development of the ‘Reprogrammable Intelligent Battery Charger (RIBAV) 1.0’.

“Our programme is a reflection of our belief in sustainable development and taking instance through RIBAI, we can prolong the lifespan of a rechargeable battery,” he added.

The engineering students from Curtin Sarawak will continue to excel and this has been proven by its graduate’s statistics where a total of 56 out of 66 engineering students will be graduating with Honors and 6 out of the 66 students will be graduating with Distinction.

The School of Engineering Curtin Sarawak was recently host to 34 engineering students and lecturers from Universiti Technologi Mara Sarawak (UiTM). The visitors were given a warm welcome by the School of Engineering faculty and the Director of Teaching and Learning, Dr. Joan Gribble.

Part of the visit included a discussion session where students from UiTM and Curtin Sarawak School of Engineering shared their view about the different areas of Engineering and the differences between the two campuses.

Picture 1: Students attending the Senior Engineers Panel

Picture 2:Winners of the Sarawak Open Source Competition