SEAR PLC Design Competition Making its Mark in 2023

The Southeast Asia Programmable Logic Controller Design Competition 2023 was held on 24 June 2023, where it was organised by Republic Polytechnic student chapter of Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) together with Asia Pacific University (APU) and Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) from Malaysia.

This competition was open to all students from the Institute of Higher Learning (IHLs) from South-East Asia. The objective of the competition was to cultivate teamwork and allow the students from Southeast Asia to use their PLC programming skills and analytical skills to invent and design to solve industrial problems.

There were a total of 36 teams and 138 students from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Philippines that took part in this years competition, 17 teams under the diploma category and 18 teams under the degree category. Below is the breakdown of participating teams and countries.

Degree:

Diploma:

The opening ceremony took place online on 24 June 2023, with Director Mr. Soh Lai Seng, (Republic Polytechnic, School of Engineering) as the Guest of Honour. The other guest speakers included Mr. Kogi Oberoi (Chair of IMechE Singapore Branch), Prof. Dr. Ir. EUR ING Ts. Vinesh Thiruchelvam, (Vice-Chair of IMechE’s International Strategic Board), and Ir. Dr. Chua Yaw Long, (Chair of IMechE Southeast Asia Region).

Workshop and consultation sessions were conducted to ensure the participants understood the concepts before starting on the problem statements. The workshop was held on 17 June 2023 and conducted by the RP organising team, where they taught about PLC programs and designing of Human Machine Interfaces (HMI). An additional consultation session was conducted on 21 June 2023 for participants that needed clarification on certain topics previously taught.

This year's competition was judged by 6 industry professionals including Dr. Alexander Chee, (Senior Lecturer of APU Malaysia); Dr. Arun Seeralan, (Senior Lecturer of APU Malaysia); Mr. Steven Teo, (Project Manager of SMRT Pte Ltd Singapore); Mr. Mulyadi Abdul Rahim, (Senior Project Manager of SMRT TEL Pte Ltd Singapore); Mr Vineet Gupta, (APAC Business Development Manager of KBC Pte Ltd Singapore) and Mr. Koh Fu Jie, (Senior Technician of Concentrate Manufacturing Pte Ltd Singapore).

The opening ceremony took place online on 24 June 2023, with Director Mr. Soh Lai Seng, (Republic Polytechnic, School of Engineering) as the Guest of Honour. The other guest speakers included Mr. Kogi Oberoi (Chair of IMechE Singapore Branch), Prof. Dr. Ir. EUR ING Ts. Vinesh Thiruchelvam, (Vice-Chair of IMechE’s International Strategic Board), and Ir. Dr. Chua Yaw Long, (Chair of IMechE Southeast Asia Region).

Alongside this year's competition, there were 40 volunteers from Southeast Asia countries involved in the organising and hosting of this event with Republic Polytechnic being the main organising committee. On 24 June 2023, it was hosted by Lim Sheng Jie from Republic Polytechnic, Roosimin K. from Universiti Tenaga Nasional, and Vaishnavee Khurug from Asia Pacific University and on 1st July 2023, it was hosted by Ng Xin Hui Avery from Republic Polytechnic, Tan Jun Siang from Universiti Tenaga Nasional, and Vaishnavee Khurug from Asia Pacific University.

Lastly, on the 1 July 2023, the winners of the competition were announced online where in the degree level, the competition was won by the Powertron team from Universiti Tenaga National and the Runner-up team was from Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. As for the diploma level, the competition was won by Delta P team from Singapore Polytechnic and Runner-up Bocchi the PLC team also from Singapore Polytechnic.