engineering

Once again, our students shone bright like a diamond in the international arena!

We are extremely proud to announce the success of our Engineering students, Mohamed Ahsan & Akshey Kumar from the School of Engineering, who unleashed their potentials and bagged the Best Innovation Prize at the 24th International ICT Innovation Services Awards (Innoserve Awards) 2019 that was held recently at Taipei, Taiwan. The team was under the supervision of their lecturer, Dr. Freddy Tan Kheng Suan. The same team also achieved astonishing results at the APICTA Malaysia Awards as well as the Singapore Energy Innovation Challenge previously.

InnoServe Awards is an annual ICT application competition held for university and college students. It is the largest and the most significant ICT Awards in Taiwan. InnoServe provides a platform for students to present their projects, while at the same time, promoting academic-industry collaboration by integrating academic training and practical experience. 

More than 10,000  teachers and students from over 100 universities and colleges participated in the Contest. The team stood out among the 12 Global Finalists, which included teams from Australia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar and Taiwan. Our team who represented Malaysia was awarded the Best Innovation Award for their project.



At the competition, our students developed a low cost and portable cancer detector, which combined their innovative ideas and amazing technical skills as well as charitable objectives. The detector allows users to detect harmful radiation in the environment – upon testing, it was found that the detector was highly sensitive and accurate. This is a solid testament to our students’ capability in producing industrial-grade equipment that can benefit the healthcare industry at a low cost – even before they graduate! 

Huge CONGRATULATIONS to the team and KUDOS to Dr. Freddy for their astonishing achievement – this has once again proven that APU students are capable to achieve outstanding success internationally. In addition, they showed the world what it means by ‘Malaysia Boleh!’ when it comes to global competitiveness. We look forward to seeing Akshey and Ahsan as successful Engineers who will bring significant contribution to the world and the society.

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Our School of Engineering continues to stand tall and stay strong! At the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) 60th Annual Dinner that was held recently, we are pleased to share that Yim Jun Ming, our final year student of the Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical & Electronic Engineering with Honours programme, attained the IEM Gold Medal award 2019. The award was to acknowledge Jun Ming’s outstanding academic excellence in his final year of studies, particularly in his final year project, that was built on an environment monitoring system using Internet of Things (IoT).

A moment of pride for APU was recorded at the event as well, when our own ELA robot, designed and built by the Asia Pacific Centre of Robotics Engineering (APCoRE), was used by the Minister of Primary Industries, YB Teresa Kok to officiate the event.

Jun Ming is the 6th Engineering student from APU to receive the IEM Gold Medal since 2014; our continuous success is a testament of our outstanding quality of teaching and learning at the School of Engineering.

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Kuala Lumpur, 10 December 2018: A cross-faculty and trans-disciplinary effort among students and staff from Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) and the Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT) led to the production of the university concept car named - Invictus.

The Invictus was a working prototype designed and assembled by team Invictus to compete in the Proton DRB-Hicom Creative Car Challenge (PD3C) 2018 which was concluded on 8 December. The car emerged as the champion of the challenge and the team walked away with a cash prize of RM7,000. In addition, Khoo Wern Sheung, Year 3 student of the BA (Hons) Transport Design programme, who was part of the team also achieved a 3^rd Prize at the Design Battle.

Prior to the final challenge, the team from APU was one of the 13 finalists at the PD3C pitching session held in March 2018. At the pitching session, the team proposed to use the Proton Preve as the base model of the Invictus’s concept design. They were then given a Proton Preve and were required to re-design and re-engineer the given car model with brand new ideas and concepts.

Under the guidance of academic staff from the School of Media, Arts & Design (SoMAD) at APIIT, 20 students from the Product Design, Transport Design and Engineering disciplines worked on sketching, designing, modelling, assembling and styling the Invictus over 9 months.

Animation and Visual Effects students applied their skills and knowledge in creating the promotion video and designing the electronic display panels available within Invictus.

Personnel from the PD3C committee visited the team and were kept updated of the progress twice throughout the progression. The car development process was fully documented in the logbook as required by the organizers.

This was the first concept car assembled by APU & APIIT students, as they participated in the PD3C for the first time.

The car featured futuristic design elements that cater for urban living lifestyle, in line with APU’s nature of being a technology-savvy and innovative university. Some key features on the concept car include:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) integrated headlamps
• Integrated side view cameras to replace traditional wing mirrors
• Smart Auto Door with Facial Recognition System
• Fully digital Infotainment System
• High-pressure front windshield to replace traditional wipers
• Touch-screen and fully-interactive panel to replace traditional dashboard, speedometer, odometer and fault indicators
• Front lower radar sensor to detect uneven objects or surfaces ahead

Khoo Wern Sheung, Year 3 student of the BA (Hons) Transport Design programme, also participated in the Design Battle that was held as part of the competition. His hand-sketched design of a compact car based on the theme given, ‘Fish’, emerged as the 3^rd Prize Winner of the Battle.

Overwhelmed by their victory at the competition, Invictus team member, Lee Kian Chong, expressed his gratitude to the university lecturers and his team mates for the support. “It’s been such a wonderful experience! There were times we felt frustrated but with great team work we are proud of the final outcome. I am really proud to be part of the team. We manage to turn the impossible to possible,” said Lee.

Saifullizan Bin Abdul Wahab, academic staff of APIIT, recalled the team’s efforts and the strong passion demonstrated by the staff and students over the 9 months while working on the Invictus, “The Invictus born out of teamwork among all staff and students, as well as the strong support by the management and our colleagues at APU and APIIT. Team Invictus had a challenging yet memorable 9 months; I am thankful to all students and staff who had worked on the Invictus tirelessly. Our hard work paid off!” 

“The team worked with passion, perseverance and dedication to achieve a concept that is revolutionary. An awesome effort by students and staff from across different schools, working together as an integrated effort,” commended Datuk Parmjit Singh, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of APIIT Education Group.

The Invictus is on display at APU’s campus located in Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil from 10 December 2018 onwards. For more information about the Invictus, follow them on social media: Invictus – APIIT (Facebook) / Invictus.apiit (Instagram).

Kuala Lumpur, 11 October 2018: Petroleum Experts (PETEX), one of the world’s leading petroleum engineering software company based in United Kingdom (UK), donated software licenses worth approximately RM8.7 million to Asia Pacific University (APU) recently.

The suite of Integrated Production Modelling (IPM) software - “Prosper”, “GAP”, “GAP TRANSIENT”, “MBAL” and “REVEAL” cover the entire spectrum of petroleum engineering concepts and application. Through the software, students are exposed to seamless learning experiences within the knowledge areas of production forecasts, reservoir optimization and other useful applications that assist them to develop critical analysis of field and reservoir management.

APU is one of the first universities in Malaysia to adopt the PETEX software suite within its academic syllabus.

Year 3 and Year 4 students of APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering programme will be using the software in their “Production Engineering”, “Gas Engineering”, “Reservoir Engineering” modules that are offered through the programme.

The industry-grade software suite is also set to assist Final Year aspiring Petroleum Engineers in completing their Field Development Project, where students apply the use of the software suite in case studies, to simulate real-life problems and develop relevant solutions based on real-time data.

A report published by the World Economic Forum in 2017 addressed the needs for digital transformation within the oil and gas industry, where digital technologies uncover huge potentials by providing better understanding on a reservoir’s resource and production capabilities to increase efficiency; therefore, this sponsorship provided by PETEX also supports a key objective of APU to develop industry-ready skills amongst its Petroleum Engineering students, preparing them to become technologically-sound petroleum engineers as they graduate.

Kuala Lumpur, 11 October 2018: Asia Pacific University (APU) is one of very few universities in Malaysia to receive a total of 26 academic licenses of the tNavigator® software worth USD4 million (RM16 million) from Rock Flow Dynamics Inc., USA recently.

APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering students will be exposed to the tNavigator® package, which includes the Geology Designer, Model Designer, PVT Designer, VFP Designer, Network Designer, Simulation Engines, Simulation Results GUI and History-Matching modules.

The tNavigator® is the first and only product on the market which dynamically combines a fully interactive 3D graphical user interface and a record breaking parallel supercomputing engine. Through the software, students can make use of interactive modern visualization methods to assist them to effectively learn the flow of oil and gas, understand the composition of hydrocarbon fluids and design effective geological methods for drilling and oil extraction.

Year 3 and Year 4 students of APU’s B.Eng (Hons) in Petroleum Engineering programme will be using the software in their “Reservoir Simulation” and “Enhanced Oil Recovery” modules that are offered through the programme.

The industry-grade software suite is also set to assist Final Year aspiring Petroleum Engineers in completing their Field Development Project, where students apply the use of the software to calculate properties of fluids, build surface network models and construct static and dynamic reservoir models to develop real-life reservoir management solutions.

A report published by the World Economic Forum in 2017 addressed the needs for digital transformation within the oil and gas industry, where digital technologies uncover huge potentials by providing better understanding on a reservoir’s resource and production capabilities to increase efficiency; therefore, this sponsorship provided by Rock Flow Dynamics Inc. also supports a key objective of APU to develop industry-ready skills amongst its Petroleum Engineering students, preparing them to become technologically-sound petroleum engineers as they graduate.

About Rock Flow Dynamics Inc, (RFD)

Rock Flow Dynamics (RFD) develops software for the petroleum industry. It offers a wide range of advanced innovative tools for reservoir engineering implemented in tNavigator – the dynamic reservoir simulator developed by the company. RFD is expanding quickly to keep up with a fast growing Oil & Gas service industry. New technologies developed by the research and product development teams of Rock Flow Dynamics are integrated into the company’s flagship product – tNavigator®. The software employs Qt graphical libraries, which makes the system true multiplatform. By taking advantage of the latest computing technologies like NUMA, Hyperthreading, MPI/SMP hybrids, the performance of tNavigator by far exceeds the performance of any industry standard dynamic simulation tools. Only by using tNavigator can users be sure to unlock the full potential of modern computing hardware.

We are pleased to share that a 3-minute Avant-Garde research competition took place for the first time at APU recently.  Modelled upon the ‘3 Minute Thesis’ competition format which traditionally involves research students pitching their research to a panel of experts, the competition brief required students to formulate and present innovative, yet viable ideas to a panel of judges strictly within three minutes and using no more than a single slide. A total of 22 students competed at the final round, in which they pitched their ideas to the panel of judges comprising Dr. Lai Nai Shyan, Aida Zamnah Binti Zainal Abidin and Geetha A. Rubasundram who were from the Faculty of Computing, Engineering & Technology (FCET) and Faculty of Business & Management (FBM) respectively.

The competition attracted students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and this was reflected in the novel and interesting ideas presented.  That said, three in particular stood out in terms of freshness, technical viability and market appeal.  Third place was awarded to Sofea Wong, whose idea, The Wonderlust App, made effecgive use of augmented reality to address problems encountered by travellers.  The judges awarded the runner up spot to Jaedon Tan Yung for his presentation of WOKO, an all in one educational Event Management app.  The outstanding idea and overall presentation, however belonged to Arvin Rahman, who wowed the judges with his social running app, Run Along. 

Overall the competition afforded students the opportunity to not only exercise their creative juices but also gain valuable feedback as to how to pitch an idea effectively within strict parameters.  Much appreciation is given to all those who attended, especially the judges, as well as to the organizing committee, led by Vinothini Kasinathan for organising the competition.   

Our Mechatronic Engineering student, Hoy Chun Wai recently represented Malaysia in the Young Person World Lecture Competition (YPWLC) which took place in Araxa, Brazil. Prior to his entry into the global arena, Chun Wai was pronounced the winner of the National Materials Lecture Competition that took place at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in June this year.
 
YPWLC has been organized annually by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) UK since 2005. Sponsored by IOM3 and the support from The Worshipful Company of Armourers & Brasiers, the Young Persons' Lecture Competition invites students and professionals up to the age of 28 to deliver a short lecture on a materials, minerals, mining, packaging, clay technology and wood science related subjects. The judges were from IOM3 and the main sponsor, CBMM.
 
At the competition, Chun Wai competed against other contestants from various countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland, UK, South Africa, Australia and Brazil. Despite being the youngest contestant among all, Chun Wai received excellent feedback from the judges for his presentation on the title, “ Nanocellulose: Nature’s Answer to Energy Poverty”. Even though he didn’t win the first prize in Brazil, it was a great exposure for him. Based on his excellent performance, we are proud that he was on-par with other participants who were members of the industry. 
 

Congratulations to Chun Wai for this notable achievement! The credit goes to the coaching team from School of Engineering (SoE), that comprises Brian Lim, Jacqueline Lukose, Dr Lai Nai Shyan and Dr Lau Chee Yong. Since November 2015, the team has been planning and strategizing Chun Wai’s strength for the competition which included content development and mock lectures. 
 
Coming up next, APU will host the 2017 Malaysia IMM MLC Semifinals and Finals at our new campus. It will take place in February 2017 and May 2017 respectively, and will be chaired by Brian Lim Siong Chung from School of Engineering. As hosts for IMM 2017, we look forward to us continuing in the winning ways.

Here’s another good news to share!

Our students from the APU Faculty of Computing, Engineering & Technology (FCET) recently made their name at the first GreenTech Youth Innovation Challenge 2016, which was organised by GreenTech Malaysia, an organization under the purview of the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA), and Asia School of Business, in conjunction with the International Greentech & Eco Products Exhibition & Conference Malaysia (IGEM) 2016.

Throughout the competition, our team of students, comprising Ngie Kok Sin, John Lim Hong Aun, Lee Jun On and Chan Kar Keng went through 5 stages of challenges, in which they were required to develop a prototype of a product that addresses the world’s environmental sustainability issues. Our students developed the “Intelligent Room System”, which made use of Arduino Nano, Motion & Light Sensors and Solid-state Relay to automate the switch of lights to save electricity.

Eventually, green technology is the future and we are glad that our students are exposed to it prior to their graduation. Congratulations to the team, who was mentored by Vickneswari Durairajah & Suresh Gobee, for this awesome achievement!