Five Physics Students Got Top Awards in The Global AI Challenge for Building E&M Facilities
Left to Right: Xie Maokai, Hu LiuRuochen, Zheng Boyu, Prof Zhou Chang Song, Dr Chan Mau Hing, Ou Weijin, and Min Rui.
The Global AI Challenge for Building E&M Facilities is the first and largest-ever global AI event, organized by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD), HKSAR Government and the Guangdong Provincial Association for Science and Technology. In the competition, Physics Students developed an AI model to predict the cooling demand of a commercial building. Prediction of cooling demand is essential to achieve better building energy efficiency. In the AI competition, our students got the following top awards.
Grand Prize (AWS Most Efficient AI Algorithm Award) + Gold Award:
- MIN Rui
Silver Prizes:
- OU Weijin
- HU LiuRuochen
- XIE Maokai
- ZHENG Boyu
MIN Rui’s Sharing
I’m very pleased that I have won the Grand Prize in this competition, which is mainly due to the collective efforts of our team and the careful guidance of our instructors. From this competition, I really learnt a lot. I realized the true meaning of the proverb 'No pains, No gains' cause our team really devote a lot to the contest.
In fact, when I knew I would get a Grand Prize, I was really excited that all the hard work had not been in vain. We are a team of four students from the departments of Physics, Geography, and Computer Science, responsible for the energy saving and emission reduction, location identification, and artificial intelligence parts of the Global AI Challenge for Building E&M Facilities.
As STEM students, it is very important to use the knowledge learnt to solve practical problems in life. The purpose of this competition was predicting a more accurate building cooling load and helping facility managers to determine the best chiller operation strategy to improve energy efficiency. After clearing the goal, our team members carefully discussed, collected data, developed plan, used the test data from a commercial complex multi-chiller system in Hong Kong that was uniformly distributed by the competition organizing committee, trained the prediction model step by step, repeatedly figured it out, and finally successfully developed an AI cooling load prediction model, which can accurately predict the hourly cooling load of the commercial complex for the next three months. We have achieved the target of the competition and solved this technical puzzle.
As a student of MSc program Green Technology (Energy) in the Department of Physics, the courses related to Energy Audit and Management, Renewable Energy Technology have helped me a lot, not only in the application of knowledge in the energy saving, emission reduction and energy efficiency management part of the competition, but also allowed me to expand my professional horizons and made my future work more comfortable. In addition, our program cooperates with AEE and is the only program in Hong Kong that provides Certified Energy Manager (CEM) training course. In the context of the global advocacy of Green Energy and the efforts to achieve "Carbon Peak" by 2030 and "Carbon Neutral" by 2060, our major becomes very attractive.
Finally, I would like to thank the organizer of the competition for giving our team the opportunity to participate in the competition, and hope that the organizer will hold more similar competitions to give students the opportunity to expand their horizons. Meanwhile, I would like to thank Dr M.H. CHAN for sharing the competition information and Prof Samson Tai for his careful guidance.
As approaching the 25th anniversary of the return of the Hong Kong SAR to the motherland, I wish Hong Kong Baptist University becomes better and better, and wish Hong Kong will make greater achievements in the future!
MIN Rui
April 2022
OU Weijin, HU LiuRuochen, XIE Maokai, and ZHENG Boyu’s Sharing
When we heard the news that our team won the prize of AI competition, we felt very excited and very delighted. It was amazing to us mainly because it is the first prize we won in HKBU and even in Hong Kong. It was a very memorable experience.
During the competition process, what made us won the prize most was our courage. Before the enrolment, we were afraid of our limited ability a little bit. However, we did not want to miss any opportunity to expand our knowledge and improve our capability so we stepped forward bravely. Looking back, it proves we are right.
Another point worth mentioning is that the knowledge of other major will make you grow up. In big data era, not only the knowledge of Artificial Intelligence can help you solve problem efficiently, but also it could change your thinking habit, which can provide you with a new angle to think about the same thing. So we could take the advantage of Energy Audit most. It is quite useful for us to combine the knowledge of Artificial Intelligence and Green Technology.
OU Weijin, HU LiuRuochen, XIE Maokai, and ZHENG Boyu
April 2022