KOTA KINABALU: An 18-year-old Dusun student has recently wowed an international conference panel with his research paper, focusing on improving student hostel security particularly in the interior schools.
Adee Deax Romzee, from the Keningau Vocational College, presented his project via a video conferencing at an online International Conference on Social Science and Humanity hosted in Paris, France.
Organised by Eurasia Research, his paper titled 'Automatic Lock for Hostel Students in an Effort to Increase the Security of Their Valuables from Theft' will be published in an international journal.
Adee said his final year research project aimed to examine the effectiveness of an automatic lock, which might help hostel students secure their valuables and privacy by preventing their lockers from being broken into.
"Most students who stayed at school hostels had the experience of losing their locker keys due to misplacement, carelessness and sometimes theft.
"This posed an issue for them as losing the physical keys might put their lockers at the risk of being broken into by anyone and it also made it difficult for them to retrieve their belongings," he said.
Adee, who is from Ranau and studied electrical technology, noted in his paper that physical facilitators are the most common factors for theft on personal belonging to occur in schools or colleges.
He opined this could be largely attributed to the poor physical layout of the campus and lack of security, giving advantage to offenders to commit crimes such as breaking into a student's locker and stealing their belongings.
"In most Malaysian schools and colleges, there were no security cameras or surveillance systems and most dormitories housed over 20 to 30 students, whose lockers and beds were situated close to each other," he added.
Utilising Arduino, a programmable circuit board often used in creating digital devices, he said the automatic lock could be controlled using smartphone via mobile application, thus improving student access to their locker.
Adee said he wanted to explore the potential of emerging technological trends like Arduino as there is a growing demand for innovations that meet the concept of Industrial Revolution 4.0.
Meanwhile, the college director Johari @ Jaibet Sabin said the school always encouraged its students and teachers to be involved in research so they could improve their communication skills and be leaders in their fields of interest.
In the past, Keningau Vocational College has presented research at conferences in the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and Brunei.