ADRIAN NG TZE-MIN KIG180004

REFLECTION ON THE PROJECT

My name is Adrian Ng Tze-Min currently a second year Mechanical Engineering student in University of Malaya. During this semester I have registered “Social Engagement” as one of the courses taken. Basically, the mission of this course was encouraged students to expose to the community outside the university. So, every student have been assigned an ultimate mission which we have to carry out a social activity which benefits and positively influenced the community. We, 10 in a group from the mechanical department were formed and planned to organise the STEM DIHATIKU programme. My groupmate and I had spent around 4 months in observing, planning and executing the project. This project had given me valuable insights and experiences which I would like to share to everyone of you.

Planning Stage

At first, I was quite strange to this subject, I have just some basic thought from my senior which the student have to organise an activity outside the campus. Yet, after attended few sharing sessions organised by the coordinator – Mr. Nurhafizan and consultation, we have a clearer information on how the activities should work. We have formed a group of 10 with different races and we started to discuss on project selection.

During the very first planning stage, we decided to visit the Orphanage home. My teammates Putri, Adlina and Aainaa have started to do research and contact some orphanage centres to grant permissions for visiting them. Unfortunately, due to the second wave of COVID-19 hit our country, we were rejected by the orphanage centres. Meanwhile, the announcement of Movement Control Order (MCO) by the prime minister after the outbreak of the pandemic have forced stop our original plan too. It was though as our planning was not able to carry out, again we lost our direction. Hence, all the planning and discussion were put on hold and all the students were told to wait for the new updates.

After few weeks, new suggestions of projects were being announced and then all of us were given a task which we had to conduct virtual activities with secondary school students. There are total 14 activities suggested by lecturer to be undertake with the community. The 2 main categories are STEM Carnival and Digital Learning. I have some experience in organise activities since secondary school, yet this is the first time I have to conduct a virtual activity and it is a big challenge for me. After some discussion with my group members, we decided to involve in STEM carnival, and we take charge of the competition namely Pertandingan Rekacipta Dan Inovasi Teknologi Hijau. The job were distributed evenly by our group leader Jason and we work with our own pace. Although the concept was quite new for us, we never fear and happened to go through every bad situation. Along the planning period we have went through many bad situations and I have learnt that teamwork is the most important key in planning activities. With good teamwork, we able contribute our idea and advice during discussion and most importantly we never face the problems alone.

Project Execution

During the first stage of the project, the promotional poster was made in order to attract more participants. Initially, the number of participants was not satisfiy and we quite worry about our competition was not attractive enough for participants. Hence, we cooperate with other groups and try our best to reach more secondary schools and finally we able to boost up the number of participants. Among the school that participate in our competition were SASER, MRSM Parit, MRSM Tun Dr Ismail and etc.  Although the total number of participants for the competition was only 8, our project would still have to continue as planned.

After the registration closed, my team members conduct a Thinker CAD learning session. The session were conducted in online form and I think it was a good opportunity for the secondary school students to learn Computer Aided Drawing and also exposed to online learning.  I was quite amazed with the passion of my teammate who able to successfully conduct the learning session and also prepare some small gifts to the participants. On top of that, he able to attract students to participate more on our programme.

During this carnival, I had assigned to in charge of gifts and certificates. At first, I was quite confused what to prepare for the winners of the competition. Therefore, I try to discuss with our coordinator and both of us agreed that giving out cash prize is the best option. Besides that, my second task was designing the certificates. I hardly faced issues on completing the task because I have zero knowledge in graphic design. Therefore, I try to learn it online by searching some useful video from youtube.com and also consult my friend through Whatapps. Finally, I able to complete 2 certificate design and I was quite happy because I able to learn new skill during the project execution and also my designs were praised by my group members.

On the closing ceremony, it was quite smooth and very good. In general, it was an online event with over 80 attendees. Yet not everything run smoothly, there was some technical issues during the middle of the ceremony as the video played have no sounds. Luckily, our emcee able to handle the weird situation and the ceremony  goes on. In my opinion, it was a good and remarkable session and can be consider as a successful one.

Post-event stage

After the closing ceremony, we have prepared a feedback form for the participants to collect their ideas and thoughts from the public, so we can analyse our event and learn from the mistake we made.

Besides that, I also made a google form to collect the winner’s information to ease the prize giving process.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to address my appreciation to every member that has been a part of this event.  Social engagement projects is a very good platform for students to learn and socialise. Besides that, it also benefits the community and rise up the university reputation. Last but not least, I would like to end this article with a meaningful quote "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success." --Henry Ford. Thanks again to our project coordinator – Mr. Nurhafizan and our group leader – Jason. I am so grateful to have such great time with you all.

Thankyou,

Adrian Ng Tze-Min

KIG180004 // 17066937/1