By Iylia Marsya Iskandar
GOMBAK, 30 March 2020: Despite the threatening outdoor situation during this pandemic, an expert group of engineers consisting of lecturers from the university’s Kulliyyah of Engineering (KOE) has successfully produced a face shield made for the university’s frontliners.
The project entitled “Helping Frontliners (vs) COVID-19” is led by the Centre for Unmanned Technologies (CUTe), a research centre established to develop scientific research and development through collaboration between human and robot.
The Director of CUTe, Dr. Zulkifli Zainal said that this idea came to fruition when the Deputy Rector responsible for Research and Innovation, Prof. Dr. Ahmad Hafiz bin Zulkifly, requested the IIUM Research Centre to help in producing face shields for officers handling COVID-19 and successfully produced its first prototype on 24 March.
Dr. Zulkifli highlighted that the centre currently has seven 3D printing machines that can produce 140 units of face shield daily and will be distributed to all frontliners especially those in IIUM Medical Centre, Kuantan.
“This includes auxiliary police and staffs of IIUM Health and Wellness Centre in Gombak, Gambang, Kuantan, Pagoh and Kuala Lumpur campus,” he stressed.
Dr. Zulkifli emphasised that the production process will run for 24 hours, seven days in a week with the help of lecturers, students and volunteers.
Elaborating on the centre, Dr. Zulkifli said that the main function of the centre is to close the gap between researchers, industry and IIUM community by developing technology to nurture a generation of scientists and future engineers and to humanise innovation.
“This centre exposes students to innovation by assisting projects led by the lecturers,” he added.
As an active research centre, CUTe is also involved with few other projects such as Aerosol Box and Medibot and regarded as an extraordinary training and research centre in this region, according to Dr. Zulkifli.***