MIND & STEM Festival

Participating booths at the festival

UTAR and Chung Hua Middle School No.1 Kuching, together with Malaysia Mental Literacy Movement (MMLM) and Kuala Lumpur Engineering Science Fair (KLESF), organised the MIND & STEM Festival on 3 and 4 August 2018 at the school hall of Chung Hua Middle School No.1 Kuching, Sarawak. For the first time ever in Kuching, the event attracted a big turnout of school students and the public.

UTAR Centre for Extension Education Director Lim Guat Yen said the main objectives of the festival were to introduce and promote various techniques and skills pertaining to the improvement of mental literacy, as well as to promote interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) among primary and secondary school children. It also aimed to assist the country in globalisation and human resource development. She added that the festival was only conducted in Peninsular Malaysia in the past. This is the first time the festival is organised in Kuching and the event aimed at expanding its presence at Kota Kinabalu.

Participants engaging in various workshops

The two-day festival featured a variety of fun and interactive contents and activities, including mental literacy talks and creative mind games, STEM hands-on experiments and exhibitions, 3x3x3 Rubik’s cube competition and workshop.

Eric Tan,the coordinator of the Rubik’s cube competition and workshop, said that solving Rubik cube was a good exercise that could benefit one with hand-eye coordination. He pointed out that many parents nowadays encourage their children to get involved in this mentally challenging games because it could improve one’s thinking and problem-solving skills.  

In addition, the Grandmaster of Memory Wong Wan Jiun and Malaysian Human Calculator West Wong Woon Chieng were also invited to deliver their talks titled “How to boost your memory by 100% easily” and “Math is Easy with Brain Power” respectively.

Wong delivering his talk

In his talk, West Wong mentioned that number sense is an important aspect in this era of big data and artificial intelligence. He said that everyone has a very powerful brain, however, the real concern is learning how to use it to improve the number sense and develop the potential. Wong Wan Jiun, on the other hand, said, “Memory is bound to be affected by age, however, having a keen memory is not entirely innate. It can be trained.” He told the participants that the brain is composed of left and right hemispheres which are responsible for different tasks. As long as they can be functioned flexibly, they can greatly enhance the learning effect.

West Wong (middle) with participants