THE organisers of the Grand STEM Challenge ’22 are now inviting lower secondary students to take part in the workshops and competitions this year.
Deputy Chief Minister II Prof Dr P. Ramasamy, who is also the Penang STEM chairman, conducted the media launch of the event at Tech Dome Penang today.
This year’s Challenge will mark the third in the annual competition series which was first kicked off in 2020 after the closure of schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The ultimate aim is, of course, to nurture their interest in STEM-learning and to inspire more to opt for science stream when they go on to upper secondary,” Ramasamy said during his speech.
“For this year, the organising committee has decided to offer an additional category as part of the effort to widen their STEM focus, making it a total of eight categories.
“They are physics, chemistry, biology, HOTS Math, robotics, mobile app development, game development and Levelup Your English.
“To encourage more students to participate, it has been decided that students can choose to take part in only the learning workshops whilst those who would like to test their proficiency can opt to also enter the eight challenges offered.
“The competition will be an inter-team event open to lower secondary students and interested students will need to register through their respective schools.”
Ramasamy added that while the workshops and preliminary competitions would be conducted virtually, the organisers are planning for the Grand Final to be conducted physically, subject to the prevailing Covid situation then, to instil more excitement.
He said the Penang STEM, Tech Dome Penang and Penang Math Platform embarked on the first Grand STEM Challenge (GSC) in 2020 after realising the tremendous challenges faced by teachers and students through online learning (particularly for STEM subjects).
Thirty-six schools took part in the event in 2020 and 35 took part the following year.
Ramasamy thanked the state Education Department for endorsing the event to help groom talents for the needs of the nation, Intel for coming forward as the main sponsor, Emico for sponsoring all the trophies and medallions and Kiwanis Penang Central for sponsoring schools for the Challenge for the third consecutive year.
Individual trophies, prizes and certificates will be offered for the top three teams and medallions and certificates for the top 20 team finalists for each category.
Individual team scores for the eight categories achieved by the respective teams will be accumulated to derive the best overall school which will receive the Penang STEM-Intel Challenge Trophy.
The schedule for the respective workshops and competitions are as follows: Educational/Preparatory Workshops (June/July), Preliminary Competition (Aug 13) and Grand STEM Challenge (Sept 3).
No registration fee will be charged for participants from government-linked schools, but as this will be dependent on corporate sponsorship, there will be a limit of only one team for each category per school, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Companies which are interested to sponsor schools to participate in the workshops and competitions are welcome to contact the organisers at [email protected] or Whatsapp Syakirah at 010-4541097.
Also present at the launch were Penang Tech Centre Berhad chief executive officer Khoo Boo Wooi, Penang STEM general manager Richard Chung, Dr Ngoo Seong Boon (senior director, partner & alliance, Intel IoT Group) and Kiwanis Penang Central board member Terry Tan.
Story by K.H. Ong
Pix courtesy of Tech Dome Penang