WINNERS ALL: Tuan Haji Mohd Anuar, Deputy Director of Co-curricular and Arts Division (fourth from left) and Mr Law King Hui, Managing Director of Sasbadi (third from left) with one of the winning teams of the FIRST Lego League Malaysia Championship.

YOUNG BUT BRILLIANT: Mr Law King Hui, Managing Director of Sasbadi (first from left) and Ir Asst Prof Liew Chia Pao, deputy dean of UCSI’s Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment (first from right) with one of the winning teams of the FI

YOUNG ENGINEERS: Contestants of UCSI’s LEGO LIKE Competition assembling their LEGO structures in 20 minutes.

HOPEFUL: A participating team in the UCSI LEGO LIKE Competition with their ‘Car of the Future’.

KUALA LUMPUR: UCSI University joined efforts with Sasbadi Sdn Bhd – Malaysia’s premier education publisher and co-organiser of ‘For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology (FIRST) – and LEGO, a global name in toy manufacturing, to host the FIRST Lego League (FLL) Malaysia Championship 2014 from April 25 – 27, 2014. This is the second year in a row that UCSI is hosting this popular event. 

Themed, ‘Nature’s Fury’, the three-day event closed on April 27 with an awards ceremony officiated by Yang Berbahagia Tuan Haji Mohd Anuar bin Abdul Hamid, the Deputy Director of Co-curricular and Arts Division, Ministry of Education Malaysia. He officiated the event on behalf of Datuk Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof, Director General of Education. 

In his speech, Tuan Haji Mohd Anuar thanked Sasbadi for organising this yearly event as it results in an opportunity for young Malaysians to compete against other students from around the world. 

He also added that with 5.4 million students in Malaysia, the task of educating the future generation cannot be undertaken by a single agency, it required the help of NGOs and corporations. 

Almost 1,000 participants across the country competed to win the honour of representing Malaysia in the FLL World Festival Championship 2015 in St Louis, United States. Introduced by FIRST and Lego Group in 1998, FLL is an international design and robotics programme for those aged 9 to 16. 

Notably, the competition aims to foster greater interest in science, technology and design among students and teach them valuable employment and life skills, which are essential for aspiring engineers and innovators. 

According to Ir Asst Prof Liew Chia Pao, deputy dean of UCSI’s Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment, the participants “have shown much engineering ingenuity and creativity, as well as team spirit and sportsmanship.” 

“Based on our experience in education, we have seen that the Gen Y, like yourselves, excel better when you are given opportunities to apply what you have learned,” he said. 

“This is why UCSI has sponsored the venue for this competition two years in a row. Very simply, we are excited to see what you – and your robots – can do.” 

The top prize, the gold Champion’s Award was won by Phantom Assassin of the Creative Robotics™ Learning Center (Penang). The silver and bronze awards were won by Silence Assassin from the same Centre and the Precision Phoenix 2.0 from the Creative Minds robotic centre (Kuala Lumpur), respectively. 

In line with this, UCSI also collaborated with Sasbadi and Lego Education to organise its second mini ‘Lego Like’ competition where participants were required to ‘build’ their most creative Lego structures within 20 minutes. 

The top three structures with the most ‘Likes’ on Facebook will win prizes sponsored by Sasbadi. The voting period for this year’s competition will begin on the 12th of May 2014 and end on the 14th of July. The results will be announced on the 21st of July 2014 on the UCSI University Facebook page.