TAR University College Students in a League of Their Own

Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (‘TAR University College’) students once again have proven their strong technical know-how and problem-solving skills with the latest successive three wins in the industry competitions garnered by the students from the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment. The students emerged Champion in the Anugerah Hijau 2015 Competition and the MyTRIZ Competition 2015 whereas in the Pertubuhan Arkitek Malaysia (‘PAM’)’s Annual Architecture Student Works Exhibition 2015, the students won the 3^rd Prize. 

In the Anugerah Hijau 2015 Competition for the Green Innovation Category, the idea to upcycle an old oil barrel to function as a table and chair was the novel idea of 4 creative and determined Diploma in Architecture students. Their invention, ‘The Barrel Fusion’ beat the inventions of 10 other finalists to win in the competition and they were awarded the Champion prize during the award ceremony held on 17 October 2015.

Samuel Ooi Kwun Kit, Lee Wan En, Teng Hua Quen and Yap Ai Kee were very grateful to their lecturer’s encouragement and he persuaded them to send in their entry with their invention to compete in this competition. Recalling on how they got themselves involved in Anugerah Hijau 2015, Yap Ai Kee said: “Our entry was actually an invention that we created for our course assignment. Mr Gopal, our lecturer, strongly encouraged us to send in our application for this competition.” 

“We decided to upcycle oil barrels to be something useful as we notice many old oil barrels being dumped in trash dumpsters in our housing area. This is hazardous to human. What we are studying for our diploma is of great help as the syllabus pushes us to think critically and how we can benefit the society with our creativity and inventions,” Samuel Ooi shared as to how the team came up with such a useful product. 

Another commendable win took place when TAR University College team won in the Pertubuhan Arkitek Malaysia (‘PAM’)’s Annual Architecture Student Works Exhibition 2015. Nineteen students who are pursuing their second year of the Bachelor of Science in Architecture (Hons) won 3^rd Prize in the competition which was held in October last year. Their winning creation, dubbed as the ‘FabriCave’, is an actual walk-through cave made with cardboards and thick plywood as the platform.

Embracing the fascinating concept of a cave’s structure and its curvy design with a rugged surface, the team took on the challenge to recreate this oldest form of natural architecture using manufacturing materials available to them. The planning started two months in advance of the competition where a lot of brainstorming and discussions were done in the first month to come up with a concrete and workable design before proceeding to the second month to transform the idea into a tangible structure. Kiew Qiao Rou, one of the lead designers for this project shared that the most challenging task was the drawing stage. “It was not an easy task to transform the curvy design of the cave structure from sketches into the computer software as it was not so straight-forward. However, with the advanced computer softwares available to us and the dedicated guidance from our lecturers, we managed to do it successfully,” she explained. 

Last but not least, was the achievement in the MyTRIZ Competition 2015 where three teams of students and lecturers put their problem-solving skills to the test. TAR University College teams did extremely well in the competition held on 24 November 2015. The teams clinched the Grand Prize and 2 Merit Prizes in the competition. They came up with their award-winning ideas using the TRIZ methodology which led them through a systematic problem-solving process. 

The competition required participants to come up with two solutions, one was for a household application that would not cost more than RM 100 to create and the other was for an industry project. The team members that won the Grand Prize came up with a practical solution to accelerate the drying process of long hair using microfibre to absorb the moisture for their project on household application. The 2^nd project, an industrial application, saw the team solve a problem for a local company which designs, manufactures and distributes brooms, brushes and cleaning products by providing them a solution to eliminate waste when cutting the brushes. They redesigned their brush-cutting mechanism so that no waste at all was being produced. The company benefits from improved material usage as waste is eliminated and improved process time as no more waste needs to be removed and thus productivity is increased. Process becomes more efficient and manufacturing cost is reduced.

Datuk Dr Tan Chik Heok, President of TAR University College, was utterly delighted with the wins. “The tenacity and determination of our students and lecturers in winning these competitions have shown that they are highly capable of producing good works which are practical and creative by applying what they have learnt. This clearly shows that TAR University College students not only excel academically but are employment ready,” he said.