A DAY AT UTP

It has been a long, long week. I was in KL last weekend, had a discussion with Dr Kamil, KPERAK's CEO on Monday in Ipoh, spent a whole day in UTP on Tuesday, shoot back to JB first thing on Wednesday and went straight to Desaru for a two days STC's workshop, got back to JB late Thursday night so as to make it for today's morning lecture on Theory of Structures at 8am. Fiuhh!!!

But it was all worth it especially the day I spent at UTP for all the good reasons. I finally met Dr Ben since last when we were in UTM 11 years ago. He didn't change physically so I easily recognized him even he was still in his Exora approaching me and Scylla's experts at the car park adjacent to UTP Dewan Cancelor. We exchanged greeting and he then guided us to the Civil Engineering Buildings.

At first sight, I was really impressed with the buildings. Its modern looks really tell Petronas wealth. I noticed the color mimicked KLCC's; grey and dull green I believed was the theme. Below is the photo of the building captured for your vieweing. Impressive, innit?

I was there for two reasons, one was to conduct sale and promotion (S&M) activity of ERCAD and two, to deliver a talk on my experience in learning FEM. The S&M started around 9am and I was introduced by Prof Malay Chauduri. I was very honoured by the attendance of many UTP's young lecturers; Dr Zahiraniza, Dr Koh Moi Ing, Ir Mubarak together with their graduates students. My communication with them indicated the potential of UTP to become world class university. They were all very enthusiastic in research as well as knowledge. The future is simply bright for UTP. I also had a discussion with Prof Shamsul Rahman during lunch and we talked on various issues. The first two photos below were taken during the presentation, seen in the picture are Dr Zahiraniza, Dr Koh Moi Ing and Ir Mubarak followed by the third photo showing the discussion with Dr Ben (light brown shirt).

After my presentation, Scylla's experts conducted the hands-on session of ERCAD and we were very glad to have the interest of UTP's lecturers and students trying out the software. Below is the photo of the hands-on session.

After lunch hour, I talked about the experiences I had during my learning of FEM. The talk was attended by Dr Ben's final year project (FYP) students. I started with some slides on current FEM outputs (to include Erwan's Karman's Vortex modeling) with the intention of introducing the versatility of FEM in carrying out complex engineering analysis. I then proceed with some brief discussion on differential equations and its corresponding numerical solutions technique to include FEM. I finished up the talk by showing movie clips taken from A Beautiful Mind, the movie with hope that it could motivate the students as it did for me. I hope that my talk was fruitful to them. Below are the photos showing Dr Ben's FYP students while they were watching the A Beautiful Mind's movie clips.

Below is the photo of Dr Ben's students during my discussion on differential equations and numerical techniques.

Finally, I and Scylla's experts like to express our gratitude to the hospitality offered by UTP's residents especially Dr Ben during our visit. To meet eager young minds always an honor to us. A day at UTP only told me one thing, there is a bright future waiting for us, as a nation and as an ummah, insyaAllah. (Below is the photo of us before we left UTP for Ipoh).