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10 February 2012
Story by Bonnie Teh
Engineering Projects That Will Benefit Society
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Vincent Chong receiving his award for the category Mechanical Engineering for his project which looked into improving car safety and performance by studying its handling characteristics and handling limit. Presenting the award is Deputy Head of School (Research and Research Training) Dr Edwin Tan Chee Pin.
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In keeping with its commitment to excellence, Monash University sees yet another batch of dedicated students from the School of Engineering complete their Final Year Projects (FYP) for the year 2011.
Three outstanding individuals nicked the Best Project Award. Each project is creatively different and needless to say, visionary.
Ivan Chew believes his Can Recycling Machine will be an incentive for people to start exercising their responsibility to mother earth. Vincent Chong’s technical love for cars inspired him to investigate the handling characteristics of the Nissan Teana and BMW e46. Tan Chee Wei’s Biomechanical Analysis of Human Movement reflects a curious mind.
For Chew, the Final Year Project gave him just the perfect opportunity to make tangible a lingering idea. “The School was kind enough to allow me to propose my own topic, and it just went on from there.”
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The Can Recycling Machine is a project to design and build a vending machine prototype capable of recycling used aluminium drinking cans and dish out rewards for each can recycled. The vending machine is also able to crush recycled cans to maximise collection space.
Building the vending machine proved to be fairly challenging. The design for various components was at times not optimal and had to be redesigned until they worked perfectly. Parts had to be sourced from online vendors and second-hand shops, which required time and patience.
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Chew remarks: “Malaysians are averse to recycling as there are no rewards or recognition that goes with it.”
But he hopes that by automating the recycling process, he can get the general public excited about recycling as the notion of a reward is now added into the equation.
“There is enormous potential for these kinds of vending machines to be developed in Malaysia, not just for can recycling, but for other materials as well.”
Being a big-time F1 and World Rally Championship (WRC) fan, there could be no other project for Vincent Chong.
He was interested in knowing how the vehicle behaves as it is subjected to high lateral loadings, such as taking sharp corners at high speeds. This would enable him to determine the vehicles’ handling limit in which it would lose control.
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Richard Tan Chee Wei's pursuit to read the muscle's electrical signals earned him the title 'Best Final Year Project'.
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In a nutshell, by quantifying the vehicles handling characteristics and handling limit, and then relating it to how the vehicle’s suspension was set up, innovative and creative solutions can be developed to further improve the cars’ safety and performance.
When asked which aspect of his project he was most proud of, he said, “All the results came out as expected and I received acknowledgment from both my industrial and Monash supervisor that the analysis was carried out in a good manner.”
“If your Final Year Project topic is something you are interested in, the many hours spent on it seems well worth the time.”
Richard Tan decided to go more than skin deep for his Final Year Project. His goal was to find a way to read electrical signals emitted by body muscles during movement.
He was able to achieve this with the Genetic Algorithm – a method that randomly selects signals to be converted into mathematical values that can be processed by a computer.
Tan experienced initial setbacks, such as the lack of knowledge needed in applying certain instruments, but that was overcome with the untiring guidance of his supervisor, Senior Lecturer
Dr Parasuraman Subramaniam, and tutors.
He imagines that his discovery would be able to aid the rehabilitation of stroke patients by improving the quality of exoskeletal devices used in treatment.
“My intention is just to do the best for the project, but I also hope that my project is able to contribute something meaningful to the society,” he said. |
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