Makerthon = Maker + Marathon. The Makerthon is an event where people from different backgrounds meet to face a real-life challenge by searching for new ideas, solutions, products and services. The Makerthon had been successfully conducted by IEEE USM Student Branch and collaborated with WIE USM Student Branch and also IEEE UniMAP Student Branch from 11th October 2019 to 13th October 2019. This event provides a platform for the participants to show their creativity and make an innovative prototype that can solve real-life problems.
Before the competition, the participants had gone through a few workshops to equip them with the necessary knowledge and skill. Arduino Beginner Workshop and Solidworks Workshop were conducted on 3rd October 2019. The former introduces the participants about Arduino while the latter taught about the 3D CAD software tool. Wireless Communication Workshop and Arduino Intermediate Workshop were also carried out on 10th October 2019. After the workshop, the participants would be more confident to design a product to solve our daily life problems.
There were 16 groups participated, consisting of a group of four each, from USM and UniMAP. Makerthon was carried out for three days. In the first two days, which were 11th October 2019 and 12th October 2019, participants were given a task to brain-storming their ideas on solving the problems in daily life and prepare their prototype. The participants developed their projects at EEK3 in School of Electrical And Electronics. The participants showed the importance of teamwork on developing the projects. There were facilitators available to help the students when they encountered any problem.
On the final day, the competition was held at Dewan Serbaguna USM. the participants presented their prototype on a group basis. They showed how their prototype works and also explained how their ideas can solve real-life problems. At the same time, they were also persuading the judges on their project’s advantages. A Q&A session was carried out by the judges for the queries on the participants’ prototypes. Makerthon was carried out successfully and fulfilled the objectives of the event.
Two groups from UniMAP successfully emerged as the champion and 1st runner-up in Makerthon 2019 competition. The champion was won by SCCE group from SCCE UniMAP with the title ‘Biometric Attendance System’ presented by Nurul Izzati binti Abdul Muthalib, Nur Hafizah Iffah binti Azhar, Tanussia a/p Muniandy, and Wan Nursharina binti Hayadee. While the second place was won by another team from IEEE UniMAP Student Branch which consists of four Biomedical Electronic Engineering students from School of Mechatronic Engineering, who were Muhamad Syamir Bin Azhar, Muhammad Amin Bin Rusdi, Iffa Nadia Bt Mohd Nasir and Thivya A/P Baskaran with their developed project, ‘Driving Monitoring Project’. Second runner-up was won by team X-Inventor from USM Engineering Campus with their project named ‘Smart House’.
The event would not be a success without all the sponsors especially our platinum sponsor, Greatech Integration (M) Sdn Bhd. A great thanks to our silver sponsor, Micro Modular System Sdn Bhd and also our angel sponsor, Cytron Technologies Sdn Bhd. Their support was an essential part of Makerthon being able to run smoothly and create a wonderful experience for the participant. All groups paid their hard work and presented their creative ideas on solving the problems in daily life.
