THE START.
At the start of the semester, honestly, I had a negative
feeling towards this social engagement course. I felt that it was going to be a
burden and hindrance towards my time and would clash with the other courses
that I’m taking in the semester.
From the late class sessions to the to the confusion in
understanding the objective and ways to execute this course, it was really a
rough start to the whole subject, for me at least, and it was hard for me to
enjoy my time during this course. Luckily for me, I found the best group mates that
made this course a breeze.
THE CHALLENGE
In my previous studies, I have had experienced
organizing and taking part in a social engagement program. It was fairly simple
and straight forward. Search for a place or community, decide on a community,
contact the community, organize games and activities, give out prizes, help
them clean and tidy the place up and you are done. This time around, the
university requires us to incorporate STEM into the equation. So, no
meaningless games or your simple ‘gotong-royong’. But even with the requirements, it still seem
doable and fairly simple but a factor we weren’t was the PANDEMIC. The pandemic
stopped us from have a grand camp with communities or students to just having
online sessions.
THE PLAN (or what should’ve been)
We had our first meeting as a group to discuss what
are we going to do to complete the task. I chipped in and said that we should target
primary schools as it will make it easier for us to teach and an easy completed
task. The others chipped in as well with their suggestions such as having
tutoring session with primary or secondary school students. In the end, we
decided to contact a tahfiz school for a program to introduce their students
to STEM. Both parties had agreed, and everything was sailing smoothly.
THE FALLOUT
A week before the planned program with the tahfiz,
they pulled out as a concern to our and the students’ safety as the number of
covid cases were rising at a rapid rate. This completely messed up our schedule
and plan. But there were no one to blame as we should put safety first in times
like these.
THE BOUNCE BACK
Because the fallout with the tahfiz, we searched for
alternative on places or communities for our project and activities that we can
do in such short amount of time. Sofwan got in touch with another group which had
already planned a program to teach 3D modelling with a school called SMK
Bandar Kinrara BK4. We collaborated with them to teach circuit building and
programming using the same software they were teaching to the students, which
was Tinkercad.
THE REAL PLAN
As we were distributing the workload, I got assigned
to teach the kids about coding on Arduino through Tinkercad. For me it was a
real challenge as I’ve never known the existence of such software before this
event. But through a couple of Youtube videos and help from other group members,
I pushed through and did my best to give my bets to the students of SMK Bandar
Kinrara BK4.
THE INNER STRUGGLES
A day before the event, even with all the prepared slides
and motivation, I still felt anxious and very doubtful as I usually struggle to
talk in public or to strangers. The fear of people laughing at me or finishing
what I have to say well beyond the time set dwelled my mind. I was not
confident in presenting for more than 5 mins let alone 2 hours. But there was a
glimmer of hope that put my mind to ease and let me sleep that night before my
presentation.
THE GLIMMER OF HOPE
As Iman and I were in charge of the second day, we get
to witness how our other group members present on the first day. The opening
ceremony was handled well by Sofwan. Wit, Imran and Yusri presented their part
on how to build a circuit tremendously making sure everything went well and we
were not leaving an abundance of time by finishing too early. Seeing them conduct
the first day so well gave me the confidence for my part.
THE DAY
The second day came, and it was me and Iman’s turn. We
were in charge of teaching the kids on Arduino coding. Iman did well to explain
and provide an introduction to coding and the Arduino itself. He built a good
foundation of understanding with the students on the subject matter and passed
it over to me where I was in charge of the tutorial while showing and
practicing with the kids how to code the Arduino using Tinkercad. Everything went according to plan. The students
were responsive, and we were blown away by the submission of their own coding
and circuit which showed us that the kids were very talented and are very quick
learners.
It was hard enough for us to try understand and master Tinkercad in a short amount of time, but then, the principle had a request for to come up with a solution for a reoccurring problem they had with their aquaponic system. At their school, power cuts are a common nuisance which then causes the water filter in their aquaponic system to not work which in turn causes the water in their fishpond to be dirty and murky and causing the fishes to die. They wanted us to come up with the solution to their problems and help convey the solution to the students for their STEM competition. Sofwan and Hazmie came up with the solution, circuit and the coding to solve their situation which relieved the other group members because it was heavy request from the school.
THE FINAL STRETCH
The last two days of the event was handled by Aiman, Sofwan
and Hazmie. The third day was a quiz session to solidify the knowledge learnt
from the past two session. The students were split into 4 groups and was left
with no help or hints. The objective was for them to design a circuit and build
a coding program for the circuit for pedestrian to force a red light in a traffic
light system. All the groups did well which meant that we did well in teaching
them. The last day was for Hazmie and Sofwan to guide them in solving their
school’s aquaponic system problem. Even though the solution was very advanced, Hazmie
did well to simplify it to make it easier for the students to understand. At the
end, there was a prize giving ceremony to the groups and students that we felt
performed well during the sessions and marks the end of our program with them.
THE LESSON LEARNT
From my perspective, I’ve learnt a lot from this
program. The range goes from as shallow to I’ve learnt how to use the Tinkercad
software and I’ve learnt that the students of SMK Bandar Kinrara are very quick
learners and seemed very smart and talented to as deep as to not be pushed
around, power is key and you can plan everything, but everything has at least
two parties involved. But the most important take away and lesson from this
event for me is that I should always believe in myself and believe that the
hard work my and my group mates have done will shine through and everything will
go as planned and run smoothly as expected. Self-doubt has always been an issue
for me, and this event has proved to myself that I am capable of doing what my
mind has set to do.
As this program concludes, I'm grateful for my friends
that made this event an enjoyable one and also made our jobs much easier. They did
their part splendidly and conducted themselves well in their respective
sessions. I'm also thankful for the teachers of SMK Bandar Kinrara as if it weren’t
for them, we would be struggling to find another community to conduct our
event. I would also like to that the lecturers of this course in helping us
understand the objectives and connecting us to the community where we were in
need. Lastly I would like to thank the students of SMK Bandar Kinrara for
making the event easier for us and being very responsive which gave us much
more confidence in conducting the event. Hope we meet again as this is THE
END.
Comments
Post a Comment