social engagement project (MUHAMMAD AIMAN - 17200166/1)

 

BEFORE PROGRAM

After registering for social engagement subject for this semester, I was described and explained by the coordinator of this subject that we have to do a social engagement project with a particular community. The project also needed to be applied with STEM module and complete 32 hours of session. Since this project needed to be done in groups, the first step was forming a group with my friends. We had 8 members in total and our group is named SOKJU. We created a whatsapp group and discussed about the project criteria and requirements. We were brainstorming ideas to choose which communities to engage and in the early stage we were planning to teach Physics related subject to secondary school students. All of us agreed on the idea, and we tried to find any school that is willing to cooperate with us. Finally after doing some research, we came up with our decision to choose our target community which is students from Tahfiz Darul Furqan Bandar Tun Hussein Onn

We proposed our proposal to the subject coordinator and ready to take the next action to start and execute the plan. Unfortunately, due to the covid19 situation that was getting worse that time, our group and the side from the tahfiz school had to cancel the program. We were left disappointed

Without feeling despair, our group leader, Sofwan managed to find a new target community with the help of Dr. Noorhafizan which is students from SMK Bandar Kinrara Seksyen 4

So, what engineering related program we should do with the students? Luckily, at that time, SMK bandar kinrara is having some difficulties with their school’s hydroponic system. Hence, they would love to receive our help on this matter and from that problem, we as a group decided to teach them about the basic of thinkercad software which will be very helpful to solve their hydroponic system problem.

 

After getting feedbacks from the school and the teachers, Sofwan created another whatsapp group including our group members, teachers in charge and the students that will be participating in this program. So every information will be informed and distributed inside the whatsapp group.

Few days before the program started, we as a group took our own initiative to understand better about thinkercad software before we could teach the students. Sofwan also prepared the program schedule throughout 4 days and distributed mentoring schedule between our group members.

DURING PROGRAM

First Day

On the first day, the program started at 9am after every participants, mentors, teachers have entered the google meet link meeting. Iman started the program with doa recitation, followed by a brief opening speech from the headmaster, Puan Fazlon. Then we had an ice breaking session between the mentors and the students. After that, the first session began conducted by Imran, with and yusri. The agenda or main purpose of the first session is to introduce them to the basic controls and format of thinkercad, followed by some examples and tutorials of thinkercad circuit. The first session on the first day ended at 11am. 

Second Day

The program continued on the second day at 9am. After all participants have entered the meeting, iman and Irfan started the session right away. For this second session, they taught the students about some introduction to Arduino and coding followed by some examples and tutorials. The students seem to listen and follow the session attentively and gave feedbacks throughout the session. We as mentors were really surprised as they could complete the tutorials successfully within a short period of time. This shows that they were really paying attention during the session. After 2 hours, the session ended at 11 am.

Third Day

On the third day, the program started at 10am. On this third session, mentors sofwan and aiman were in charge conducting a pop quiz to the students to see their understanding of what they have learned for the past two days. The students were divided into 4 groups and all of them were given a simple task to be discussed and completed within each group. 30 minutes before the session ended, all 4 groups presented their respective answers. All 4 groups managed to answer the question successfully and this shows that they had a really good understanding about thinkercad. After 2 hours, the program ended at 12pm.

 

Fourth and final day

Finally, we came to the last day, the fourth day of the program. Mentors hazmie and sofwan were in charge in explaining and guiding the students on how they could solve their school’s hydroponic system’s problem by using real life circuit and complete coding. Then, the mentors conducted a simple quiz using kahoot platform to test their understanding before the closing ceremony. During closing ceremony, we had a prize giving ceremony followed by a closing speech from the representative teacher. Lastly, we took some pictures together and thanked everyone for their participations and cooperation before we bid them farewell.

 

AFTER PROGRAM

After the 4 days program ended, we as a group prepared a short youtube video summarising the 4 days program that we had been conducted. Each of us recorded ourselves and Sofwan compiled and edited the video.

All in all, we really enjoyed doing this program with the students of SMK Bandar Kinrara as this program also benefits us in terms of improving our social skills and getting to utilize better online platform as a tool to interact especially during this COVID19 situation. It was a great experience.

 

CONCLUSION

To conclude, I hope students of SMK Bandar Kinrara learned as much as possible from the 4 days program that we had conducted and they could apply what they have learnt in real life applications. Hopefully, with this program too, the students will be more interested with science and engineering area and become a successful person in the future. Thank you