The prestigious recognition of being the most active IMechE Student Chapter in Malaysia was won last month by Monash University Malaysa Campus. This annual event, which is open to all student chapters in Malaysia, with a prize of a certificate awarded to the Student Chapter and a trophy onto which the annual winners Student Chapter name is engraved.
The Competition
For the last 3 years, The Malaysia Branch Young Members Section has successfully run the Best Student Chapter competition, which is open to entries from any of those Malaysia Student Chapters who voluntarily nominate themselves to be included.
Currently, the Institution has 10 Student Chapters in Malaysia and five of these competed in this year’s competition, which looked at the activities, events and successes of those competing teams for the 2013- 2014 session. The five competing teams were:
• Monash University Malaysia (MUM)
• Universiti Technologi Mara (UiTM)
• University Malaya (UM)
• University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC)
• Universiti Tenaga National (UNITEN)
This year’s Best Student Chapter competition was judged by Ir. Thomas Mathews, the chairman of IMechE Malaysia as well as the rest of the IMechE Malaysia committee for the year 2014-15. The judging panel included: Ir. Daniel Lim, Fellow Member of the Institution who was asked to help evaluate; Ir. Eddie Lim, Past Chairman of the Malaysia Branch, Fellow of the Institution and Committee Member and Ir. Chow Chee Choy, Committee Member of Malaysia Branch.
To enter the competition, the nominated Student Chapters submitted reports on their activities and events for the 2013/2014 session to the Young Member Section of Malaysia, who then initiated the judging based on a fixed set of criteria. These included:
• The type and number of activities, including major events (such as SOfE and Design Competitions)
• The significance to the Institution’s themes of Energy, Environment, Transport, Manufacturing and Education
• Publicity Value and Outreach
• Benefits to members of activities, including benefits awareness amongst members
• Recruitment activities, including membership drives and dialogue with students
• And criteria on the presentation, flow and layout and attractiveness of the report itself
Monash University was considered as the winner due to factors such as its active recruitment activities, well attended and well balanced technical talks, outreach publicity, and a very good flow of presentation of their report.
Universiti Tenaga Nasional Student Chapter came in at second place with 75 points and were themselves particularly commended for their good growth on membership, their very good publicity and outreach to secondary students and for a series of "IMechE Tutorials" which they had organized. Nevertheless, at six points ahead, Monash University Malaysa ultimately won this year’s competition with 81 points.
Announcement of the winners
The announcement of the Monash University Malaysa as the IMechE Malaysia Best Student Chapter winner was made at the end of the Speak out for Engineering event which was also organised by the IMechE Malaysia Branch Young Member Section and was hosted by The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus on 29th November 2014.
Dr. Lau Ee Von PhD, CEng, MIMechE is the Academic Liaison Officer (ALO) for IMechE Monash University Malaysia student chapter and, in her ALO role, acts as an advocate for the IMechE and is the Institution’s first point of contact with students and colleagues at the university. Dr. Lau Ee Von is very proud of what the Student Chapter has achieved over the years and says:
“As the Academic Liaison Officer of IMechE Monash University Malaysia student
chapter, I had the passion to help the students who were enthusiastic and determined to work together for the progress of the club towards achieving its vision in improving the world through engineering. I would like to thank all of you for your past encouragement and support. It is gratifying to see that progress has been and continues to be made to improve the quality of the club activities. I aspire that the IMechE committee continues to work with vigour, determination and resilience and achieve their long-term goals. I wish the committee members of IMechE Monash University Malaysia student chapter the very best in order to continue their good work and harvest new talent”.
Activities, Events and Achievements of Monash University Malaysa Student Chapter
Monash University Malaysa Student Chapter have been very active over the last two years and have organised a wide range of technical talks, social events and recruitment activities all of which have contributed to them being awarded this years’ Best Student Chapter in Malaysia.
Nonetheless, one of the standout reasons for their achievement of the accolade is their outreach and publicity methods to engage with the students at the university. These include a Facebook page, a regularly updated notice board on-campus and event the sending of greeting cards to wish happy holiday seasons to the student members!
The Monash University Malaysa Student Chapter started a
Facebook page with the name IMechE Monash University Malaysia Student Chapter as a platform to publicise our events and activities to all their members. This Facebook page is also an effort to outreach to the members to communicate with them to receive feedback and enquiries about the student chapter. Photos and videos from events organised are also uploaded here.
Likewise, the Chapter’s notice board is regularly updated with posters of the latest and past activities and events. Interested members can also find out steps on how to join as a member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Furthermore, greetings posted by our Student Chapter to all its members foster the spirit of communication and diversity representative of the University’s community.
It is clear that IMechE Monash Uuniversity Malaysia truly appreciates the variety of strengths and experience brought to the table by their members; this is reflected no less in the range of events and activities organised by the Student Chapter over the last year and a half. Here are just some of the highlights:
Technical Talk on Power Piping Management System: In August 2013, the Student Chapter organised a talk for 30 Students from Ir. Yeoh Chien Wern on Power Piping Management Systems. This talk was organised for members to learn more about the management of piping systems in power generation facilities and was also an opportunity for members to understand the role and task of an engineer in the industry.
Site Visit to Universiti Kuala Lumpur Malaysia Institute of Aviation Technology (UniKL MIAT): The site visit to MIAT in September 2013 was organised by the Student Chapter and was as an eye opening experience for all participating 25 students on the workings on the aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) sector. On display in the Engine Room were the various aircraft engines that are used in different models of aeroplanes and helicopters, some of which the students got to see close-up for themselves.
Clubs and Societies Week: Clubs and Societies Week in is an activity held every semester by the Monash University Student Association for clubs to recruit members. In March this year, the student chapter set up a booth which was filled with posters about IMechE and the student chapter’s past and future events.Committee members were happy to entertain enquiries from students about the student chapter and members were also taught on how to register themselves as an affiliate member with IMechE. The event was a success with 167 members recruited, the most number of members ever recruited in the Chapter’s records!
TRIZ Workshop: 'Innovate or Detonate’, that was the topic of the TRIZ Workshop organised by the Monash Unoversity Student Chapter in May 2014. Allowing the 30 students attending to think out of the box, TRIZ is a rigorous, practical problem-solving method based in logic, data and research that allows engineers to efficiently create and select the best solution for a given problem. Developed over a 40-year period by Soviet inventor Genrich Altshuller, the TRIZ workshop was conducted by Mr. Isaac Lim, a Monash University alumnus and representative of MyTRIZ, the Malaysia TRIZ Innovation Association.
Site Visit to BlueScope Steel : Bluescope Steel is a steel rolling factory located in Kapar. A site visit was arranged to visit the factory and to learn more of the steel rolling industry. A total of 18 participants took part in this site visit, including the Chapter’s Academic Liaison Officer, Dr. Lau Ee Von. On the visit, the staff guided the students around the plant and a detailed explanation was given from them to improve their understanding of the steel manufacturing process. This was followed by a talk by the General Manager about the company history of Bluescope Steel, its operations and career opportunities.
Site Visit to MetalTech Exhibition: The MetalTech Exhibition is an exhibition held annually for the machine tool, metalworking and manufacturing industry and was the highlight activity for the first semester of 2014 for the School of Engineering at Monash University Malaysia. 4 Lecturers and 196 students from the School of Engineering attended this platform for leading manufacturers and distributers to showcase and launch their latest products and new technologies.
Presentation of IMechE Affiliate Awards: IMechE MUM also received awards for The Frederic Barnes Waldon ‘Best Student’ Award 2013 was presented to Mr. Lim Kean Liang while the Best Institution Project Award 2013 was presented to Leon Goh Hui Keat Presentation of awards took place on the 28th Feb 2014 in Monash University Malaysia and was attended by several students and staff from the Mechanical Engineering Discipline. The awards were presented by Prof Teoh.
In their report, the Monash University Malaysia Student Chapter have summed up their achievements nicely:
“It can be said that our student chapter observed significant progress both in terms of membership numbers as well as in terms of the quantity and quality of activities organized, with a 22 percent increase in membership in this term and a total of 16 large-scale activities recorded in this same period.
With a significant portion of activities being devoted for recruitment and publicity purposes, our student chapter was more widely publicised in the Monash University Malaysia community. Increased awareness allowed us to increase both our membership and the average number of participants who attended our organised activities; in addition, this allowed us to forge stronger ties with our Engineering faculty.
This opened up more avenues for us to organise even more events such as the three site visits for Semester 1, 2014 to plants specialising in various industrial fields, such that our members were able to gain a broad understanding of how mechanical engineering is applied in differing industrial fields such as the aerospace, materials, and metalworking sectors. Our increased contact base also eased our communications with external parties, creating opportunities to host more technical talks inside our University.
We will further focus on this particular development in this upcoming year as it is believed that a large portion of students in our School of Engineering have yet to experience our organised activities. It is hoped that with increasing membership and support from within our University, more resources may be made available for us to further grow our student chapter to greater heights, allowing more of our members to have opportunities to improve the world through engineering”
The opportunity to enter the IMechE Malaysia Best Student Chapter is announced to all student chapters though the Malaysia Branch Young Member Section. To get in touch with them, you can visit their
Facebook Page or contact the
Malaysia Branch Young Member Section Chairman, Khin Fai Chen AMIMechE.