Media

Music is all around us. It is an essential element in building emotional intelligence and interpretative skills. To spark students’ and public interest in STEAM (A for Arts) and to strengthen participants’ abilities to integrate and apply knowledge and skills in engineering, the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Arts & Technology Education Centre (ATEC) jointly organised a Music Show, Exhibition and Award Presentation Ceremony for the Musical Instrument Design Competition at the School Hall of the Queen Elizabeth School on May 11 2019 (yesterday).

The primary objective of the competition is to enhance the knowledge of and interest in the engineering of creating artifacts for humanistic expression among the young generation. It also encourages the use of innovative technologies and creative design ideas. The competition is under the project titled “The Science and Engineering of Sound and Music”, which was supported by the Knowledge Exchange Fund of the University Grant Committee.

Over 400 participants from primary, secondary and international schools with students from Primary 2 to Secondary 6 joined the competition. They were required to design and implement a device that is capable of producing sound, and can be used as a musical instrument. The students showed off their musical skills by performing with their finished product in a live session. They competed for the Champion, first runner-up, second runner-up, the most innovative musical instrument award, the most attractive musical instrument award, the best presentation award and the outstanding performance award as set out for the primary and secondary school categories respectively.

From November 2018 to February 2019, a series of talks and workshops were organised to allow the students to ponder over what music is, explore the science of sound, and use technologies such as 3D printing and laser cutting, to enable them to make innovative and attractive musical instruments. A number of musicians in the industry were also invited to share their experience with the participants.

At the award presentation ceremony, the HKU Dean of Engineering, Professor Christopher Chao said, “I am very impressed that all the participating students had demonstrated creative ideas in this competition. We hope that by participating in this competition, students will gain more knowledge about science and music and technologies like 3D printing or laser cutting, which will boost their interests in engineering.”

Also officiating at the ceremony, Mr. Clark Chan, the principal of Arts & Technology Education Centre was impressed by the creativity and perseverance of the students. He said: “I am pleased to be the adjudicator at this contest. Many of the student submissions are splendid products filled with originality and imagination. The works are also exemplary projection of the students’ perseverance and hard work. I hope that by leveraging on the experience from this contest, students would continue with the good work and have similar fruitful learning attainment in other school subjects.”

The list of awards and photos from the “Musical Instrument Design Competition” will be uploaded after the Award Presentation Ceremony to: http://www.cs.hku.hk/~music/AwardWinnerList-English.php

Media enquiries:
Dr. Ivy Wong, Project Coordinator (E-mail: kywong@cs.hku.hk) or Ms Celia Lee, Faculty of Engineering, HKU (Tel: 3917 8519 ; E-mail: leecelia@hku.hk)