Building Resilience in Earthquake & Structural Dynamics through STEM Outreach

Synopsis

Malaysia faces seismic hazard from three converging sources: active local fault systems mapped across Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak; far-field shaking from the Sumatra fault zone and Sunda Trench to the west; and influence from the Philippine Sea plate boundary to the east. This makes earthquake awareness a national priority, however, the topic remains largely absent from school curricula. This talk presents a low-cost, portable educational platform developed through the SECED Fund Award 2025 to bridge that gap.

The platform pairs a programmable uniaxial shaking table with a 3D-printed reconfigurable modular frame, allowing students to physically change a building's mass, height, and stiffness and immediately observe the effect on its dynamic response. This system is designed to be reproducible in any school with access to a 3D printer. Educational modules have been developed for three levels, namely primary school, high school, and undergraduate.

Technical validation against finite element models confirms close agreement in natural frequency and acceleration response across tested configurations. A demonstration study with undergraduate students showed significant gains across all 13 knowledge and perception measures, with 100% of participants agreeing the platform improved their understanding of structural dynamics.

The talk covers the platform design, the educational modules, validation results, and outreach outcomes to date, and closes with future plans.

About the speaker

Dr. Nabilah Abu Bakar is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). She holds a PhD from the National University of Singapore, an MSc from Purdue University, and a BSc from Universiti Teknologi Petronas. Her research focuses on seismic hazard analysis, earthquake engineering, and structural optimisation. She was one of the technical working committees in the development of the Malaysia National Annex to Eurocode 8 and Malaysia's national seismic hazard map for the Department of Minerals and Geoscience. She is a member of SECED, the Board of Engineers Malaysia, and the Institution of Engineers Malaysia.

Registration

The event is open to all and is free to attend. Please join the meeting via Teams* by clicking on this link. No registration is required.

Further information

This online talk is organised by SECED Young Members Group. For further information, please contact Mohamed Elzeadani (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).

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