Yamaguchi University, Japan sent their students again, to collaborate with students of Engine Technique Education, Faculty of Engineering, Yogyakarta State University (9-26 / 9/2016). FE YSU’s collaboration with Yamaguchi has been going on for a long time and has produced several concept designs to provide benefit in the community. This is the fourth year, where Yamaguchi sent students to the FE YSU to collaborate in the field of mechanics.

Students from Yamaguchi are Yuji Ida and Hiroki Otsubo, while from the FE YSU include Rizal Justian Setiawan, Ahmad Safrudin Ridho, Rachmat Jati Puruasdi, and Sahid Fitrihartanta Wibawa. These six students were then divided into two groups to work on concept designs based on their observations in the field.

The first group chose a design concept which is a tool to process the Salak beans into the coffee. The group consisting of Rachmat, Rizal and Hiroki has seen the potential of the seeds of Salak that had only been "wasted", to be used for improving the economy of Salak farmers. "In the area of ​​Sleman like Turi, Salak production is very abundant and with the design of our tools, the seed which usually becomes waste can be processed easily to become a coffee or other traditional drink," explained by Rizal during the final presentation in the front of the Mechanical Engineering Education lecturers and Prof. Shigeyuki Haruyama of Yamaguchi University.

Some manufacturers have also utilized the seed into coffee beans and based on our observation, public comments were also quite good. Thus our tool design is intended to increase the production of Salak coffee beans, “Jerry concludes.

The second group consisted of Yuji Ida, Muhammad Sahid and Achmad Safrudin tried to develop alternative designs to create a new energy to the processing of elephant (napier) grass. "With this processing, it is intended to transform grass into bioethanol as a fuel for generator which is cheap and efficient in generating electricity," said Yuji Ida.

Meanwhile, the Vice Dean of FE YSU, Moh. Khoirudin, Ph.D, at the closing ceremony said that this collaboration is very important for improving student’s competence. "In this collaboration students will learn, work and create together with very limited deadlines," he said.

"So they must work quickly and accurately to produce products according to international standards," he added.

"Working with new people and with very different backgrounds Indonesia-Japan as well as a very limited time would be a challenge to adapt as quickly as possible. Thus, in our view this collaboration will really be a very interesting project," he added.

"Of course our expectations are the concept designs that have been produced could soon be a product that can truly benefit society," he hoped.

Various comments have been received during the presentation session, so that the students are ready to do some upgrades before really actualizing their concept designs to compete in the market. (hryo)