Our generation is fluent in all things technology– we keep an eye out on the latest gadgets, marvel at new technological inventions and look up to astronauts– we’d like to take our generation a step further from being technologically aware, we want them to make technology.

Makeweekend is hosting a Robotics Hackathon as part of MOSTI’s Science and Innovation Year this 27th and 28th April at The Innovation Space, Taylor’s Lakeside Campus. This free programme is the first of its kind in Malaysia.

The hackathon aims to connect people who are interested in electronics with other enthusiasts. This will in turn, inspire Malaysian makers to go beyond ideas and realizing them using basic means like Arduino, which is a open source programme that allows users to create commands and build simple gadgets like an alarm clock, or a remote that controls garage doors, anything simple the user wants it to do.

Using these very accessible resources, laymen will make robots! The hackathon will encourage its participants to design a robot that specializes in one or several functions.  This is a highly attractive program to beginners as well as enthusiasts because it offers a wholesome package: we teach the participants how to use the program, encourage them to design a robot in groups, and help them build the actual robot.

Makeweekend has since held 3 hackathons and is adept at making participants feel at home with the latest rage: design thinking. Our previous participants has given many positive reviews about our programmes and we are confident this will be another one of our achievements, considering the previous feedback we’ve received below:

Our hackathon bridges innovation and the electronics field to our participants, and the best part is, our participants aren’t necessarily engineering students. We have gathered students from different university faculties like international business and even education faculty as participants; we’re excited about how the community is interested in learning outside their field!

Not only do we make innovation more accessible to everyone, we also impart our knowledge  in a rapid timeline. Learning and applying these things in two days is the ultimate efficiency in time management.

Makeweekend is one of the many events carried out under the National Innovation Movement 2012 (NIM2012), a national programme that is positioned to accelerate innovation primarily within the youth and grassroots communities.

 The custodian of NIM 2012 is the Ministry of Sciences and Technology (MoSTI) and is supported by Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) as well as the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

Makeweekend is an intensive programme designed to help people in their “first steps” of building innovative projects, social projects, and new lines of businesses by bringing together people from various backgrounds both technical and non-technical projects. Over a 48-hour time frame, interdisciplinary teams, consisting of students and professionals, work together on concepts and hash out ideas into working prototypes.

Makeweekend Melaka is the sixth event out of the thirteen states in Malaysia. The other Makeweekend events were Makeweekend Penang which was held at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM); Makeweekend Negeri Sembilan which was held at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM); Makeweekend Kedah was hosted at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM); Makeweekend Perlis took place at University Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), and Makeweekend Perak which was held at Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP).