‘Golden Haul’ At Fusion 2021 UX-Hackathon

APU undergraduate students clinched four awards for their final year projects using Chatbots and 360-degree AR images in national symposium.

Every designer should participate in hackathons to learn, cooperate, think critically, provide positive feedback, execute tasks under pressure, and most importantly, make friends and have fun!

It turned out to be an unforgettable experience for APU teams, who presented their final year projects; Hans Chatbot: A H5N1 Doctor Assistant for Everyone, Exploring Kuala Lumpur: AR Book on Historical Places in KL and Your One Stop Salon-tion Meet HAIRA Chatbot. They won 1st place, Gold, Silver and Bronze awards respectively at the FUSION 2021 UX-Hackathon.

The FUSION 2021 National Symposium brings together local HCIs, academicians and practitioners to encourage undergraduate students from across Malaysia to compete and contribute to Malaysia’s ICT and digital transformation in the UX-Hackathon organised by the Malaysian Association of Human-Computer Interaction-User Experience (myHCI-UX).

This is the second time APU has sent several teams to participate in the FUSION UX-Hackathon to expose them with a better understanding of new challenges in the interaction design domain in line with this year’s theme ‘Harmonising Human-centred Technology, Art and Design Beyond Boundaries’.

Under the guidance of Ts Dr Vinothini Kasinathan, Dr Julia Juremi and Ms Aida Zamnah Zainal Abidin; our students: Ooi Zhen Wei and Hiu Wen Xuan (Team 1), Fariha Harith and Amin Fadhli Azran (Team 2) and Ong Cher Xien Justin, Mak Yuin Onn and Yong Yen Khang (Team 3) participated in the symposium and presented their final year project in the UX-Hackathon session.

Simulate conversation with human users

Hans Chatbot: A H5N1 Doctor Assistant for Everyone inspired by Ooi and Hiu won 1st place and Gold Award using their creation, chatbot — computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users — with face and voice avatar explaining and educate on the H5N1 virus.

"I want people to be aware that this virus is still there in the world because like Dengue fever, it may strike at any time," said Ooi, who is currently pursuing a degree in Data Analytics at APU.

Hans chatbot could be used as a medium to educate people and children through a quiz on health safety measures, as well as its conversational ability to perform self-assessment for H5N1 infection and receive suggestions on virus prevention methods.

They designed this program is to assist front liners in terms of improving time, reducing workload, and saving costs using a one-of-a-kind chatbot that can be downloaded and standalone without internet connection.

Ooi and Hiu also received help from Lee Wei Da and Lim Yuan Jee especially in avatar creation.

"I want to participate in more competitions to gain more exposure and intend to use the core idea and functions from this system for future projects," Ooi added.

Discover historical attractions in a fun way

Fariha Harith and Amin Fadhli Azran won Silver awards for their Augmented Reality (AR) mobile app due to their interest in structural design and historic attractions.

Exploring Kuala Lumpur: Augmented Reality Book on Historical Places In KL is an interactive application that allows users to learn more about historical attractions in a fun way, with a better experience and increased interactivity.

This project was inspired by Fariha's final year project, which was designed using the Zappar App, an open-source application that can be downloaded and used by users with a smartphone and developed 360-degree images of historical buildings and attractions on Zappar and ZapWorks together with Amin.

It is suitable for kids between 7 to 10 years old, and its AR feature helps them to find information on the historical buildings and attractions in a fun manner.

Engaging with digital transformation

Ong, Mak, and Yong came up with the idea of Your One Stop Salon-tion meet HAIRA Chatbot during a Movement Control Order (MCO) that restricted hair salons from operating. 

With a user-friendly booking system created for times like this, HAIRA is the future answer for the hairdressing business and to overcome any future challenges due to movement restrictions caused by the pandemic. 

Users can browse all their favourite hair salons or barbershops, schedule an appointment with a preferred salon, check for available time slots and compare pricing. This is a useful app to assist the hairdressing industry in growing their businesses.

“It bothers me since a haircut salon was not allowed to open, and my hair was too long”. So, they created HAIRA to reduce human contact by “using this booking system integrated with chatbot application to solve hair problems virtually rather than face to face,” explained Ong, adding that their mentor always provided constructive criticism and suggestions.

Even though they did not learn any mobile application subjects during their degree, it took them three months to finish, and they were satisfied with the results.

“So being able to complete from scratch was a tough mission for me.”

A throwback, to Fusion 2020: APU sent two projects; Chatbot System: WILL CAMPERS mentored by Ts. Dr. Vinothini Kasinathan won Gold and Augmented Reality For Secondary Malaysian History Curriculum mentored by Ms Aida Zamnah won Silver.