A workshop for discussing the implementation of the 4th Year Laboratory – known as Capstone Project – for the 2017/2018 academic session was successfully held by the Department of Electrical Power Engineering (POWER) on 15th and 16th August 2017. There were a total of 29 academic and 3 non-academic staff of the POWER department participated in the 2-day workshop. Two main aims of the workshop were 1) to update the laboratory documents – Student Pack, Design Sheet and Facilitator Pack – in accordance to new industry- or community-based project themes and 2) to propose relevant, real end users either from the industry or community for the new project themes. The workshop commenced with an hour briefing session by the laboratory’s coordinator, Dr. Zulkarnain Ahmad Noorden on the execution of the previous (session 2016/17) and the upcoming Capstone Project. The participants were then divided into 4 groups based on their research groups, i.e., the Power Electronics & Drives Research Group (PEDG), the Power Engineering Research Group (PERG), the Centre of Electrical Energy Systems (CEES) and the Institute of High Voltage & High Current (IVAT) for further discussion on potential projects. At the end of the workshop, each group successfully proposed a new theme with its potential real end users and updated the related laboratory documents. The proposed new themes were as the followings; 1) Intelligent Equipment Maintenance Information System by IVAT, 2) Automated Security System by PEDG, 3) Intelligent Traffic Light System by CEES and 4) Meter Tempering Problem in Distribution by PERG. These project themes are expected to be executed by the students and their respective facilitators when the new academic session starts in September.
Brainstorming session among group members
By Dr. Zulkarnain Ahmad Noorden, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
