Description

The IEEE Women In Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group of SLTC introduces InspiHER{Tech} V1.0 for all island-wide female undergraduates to provide a platform for the rising of exemplary women professionals with strong leadership skills who can work together as a team and show their talents in the Science & technology sector. The InspiHER{Tech} V1.0 hopefully inspired 204 female undergraduates representing 21 universities as 68 teams in Sri Lanka by stimulating them to adapt to the high-speed development in the science & technology field by encouraging them to strive forward towards their success & professional growth with a competition of 3 stages which will be very supportive for them to showcase their talents to the whole community . This will boost the self-esteem as well as employment expectations of female undergraduates in Sri Lanka. The whole competition is conducted virtually with 3 rounds namely: Round 01 - InspiHER{CircuitriX}: A Circuit Designing project competition . Round 2 - InspiHER{MindFest}: A Technical Quiz. Round 3 - InspiHER{CodeWars}: A Coding Competition Exposing and stimulating female undergraduates to adapt to the high-speed development in the science and technology field is a necessity nowadays and with InspiHER{Tech} V1.0, we could do just that and more as this whole project was an inspiration for female undergraduates to strive toward success in their STEM career paths. These motives and benefits were very well recognized by the participants as well as they were enthusiastic about taking part. InspiHER{Tech} V1.0 consisted of a Workshop and a Technical Competition of 3 rounds. To be eligible for the competition, all entries had to satisfy a few requirements; InspiHER {Tech} V1.0 is open to all female undergraduates of Sri Lanka, all participants must register themselves as teams in order to compete for InspiHER {Tech} V1.0., each team must consist of three female undergraduates (including the team leader), must have appointed a team leader for the team, after registering, the team members must remain unchanged for the entire competition timeline. Cannot change team members for any given reason and lastly one registrant can all be registered under one team. If any individual is identified as a member in 2 or more teams, the entire team or teams will be disqualified. In each round of the technical competition, the participants can obtain points, and finally, the winners were announced by evaluating their points scored in all the rounds. After the Workshop the first round of the competition, InspiHER{CircuitriX} began. InspiHER{CircuitriX} was a Circuit Designing Competition that was beneficial for all female undergraduates in seek of knowledge and especially for engineering undergraduates as it is also a part of their curriculum. The competitors were required to turn in their submissions completed within the given time period and they were provided with resources or project topics to stimulate their submissions. The Proteus Workshop held prior to this round was a boost up method for all the competitors as well. InspiHER{CircuitriX}was commenced on 12 th September 2021. The participants were given a 2-week time period, until 25 th September 2021, to complete the task. For this round there were a few rules and regulations for the competitors. It was required that all the submissions should include an Arduino Circuit diagram of the design, Arduino Code, hex file, project proposal, and simulation video and all the devices should be included in the Proteus simulation and the design. When submitting the project proposal, the competitors were asked to include a small introduction about the design, a methodology that was used in the design, team name, team lead, and members. As for the font sizes when creating the proposal, they were asked that the sizes should range between 11-16pt in the document, used appropriately for headings, sub-headings, text, and annotations. Furthermore, it was added to the rules and regulations that all Images should be annotated. All teams were required to include one Orthographic/ Isometric image of the entire design on the last page, labelling the systems with system descriptions not exceeding 15 words per system. A higher number of illustrations, images, CAD models, flowcharts, simulations and representative figures were encouraged. And finally, it was a must that all the team members were involved in designing the project. Each member in the group had to have a clear idea of their whole project. Within these aspects, we could reach up to 68 teams covering 21 universities island-wide. All the Submissions were directed to a Judge Panel consist of two personalities namely Mr. Rangika Ranasinghe, Design Engineer at Zone 24x7, and Sachintha Balasooriya, Assistant Lecturer at Sri Lanka Technological Campus. The judgement started on 22 nd September and continued until 6 th October. Points for this round were allocated by judges based on their review of each submission. They were allocated that this round covers 35% percent of the total points of the whole competition. As for the evaluation of the submitted projects, they were evaluated under the criteria; Arduino code, circuit design, project proposal, simulation video, creativity of the design, applicability to the real-world scenarios. Points were given upon judgement of all the completed submissions. The top 3 teams for this round were Team Shadow from University of Moratuwa with 348 points at the first place, Coding_Angels from University of Moratuwa with 332 points at the second place and Techies from Kotalawala Defence University with 316 points at the third place. Points from this round made a big impact on the teams in their journey to the grand finale of InspiHER{Tech} V1.0 Technical Competition. A valuable certificate was also issued for all the competitors. The major implementations of the project “InspiHER{Tech} V1.0” were done by the Organizing Committee included of the teams as secretary team, program team, coordination team, design team, finance team and content creation team. It was clear that all the competitors were delighted and enthusiastic when taking part in this first round, InspiHER{CircuitriX}. Feedback from the competitors has been nothing but positive. We are proud to state that it seems that we could make a memorable impression on female undergraduates island-wide and to encourage them in their journey in the science and technology section. We could provide them with a one-of-a-kind opportunity where you get to lead a team, work as a team, practice time and project management all the while testing and improving your knowledge and skills as well. This was also a chance for the competitors to bring pride and glory to their respective universities. We believe this great and unique initiative has made huge impact on the ones who love to change and take part on the science and technological section as women in engineering.