(MENAFN- Gulf Times) A team of students from the American School of Doha (ASD) will represent the Middle East in the 2015 Global Conference on Educational Robotics in the US in July, after having recently won the 11th annual Botball Educational Robotics Programme hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ).
Around 200 high school students from across Qatar went head to head in Carnegie Mellon Qatar's Botball competition for the chance to represent the region in New Mexico, US, this summer.
The Botball Educational Robotics Programme is an internationally renowned learning experience that is designed to engage high school students in the practical applications of science, technology, engineering and math (Stem).
This year's competition saw students assemble and programme autonomous robots using starter kits provided by CMUQ at an introductory workshop held in January. The teams then competed by manoeuvring their robots through an obstacle course that simulated a geological survey.
"Many students don't think robotics is something they would be interested in, but after participating in Botball they change their minds and realise it's something they want to pursue," said Osama Hyder, a member of the winning team.
"Carnegie Mellon Qatar was also generous enough to provide the ASD Robotics Club with kits and host a participant workshop ahead of Botball, which really helped us grasp the basics of robotics and most certainly contributed to our victory."
The winning team from ASD comprised Hyder, Aakash Arora, Madison Crookshanks, Alex Frederick, Hassan Asif and Julian Sam. Hamza Bin Abdul Mutalib School finished second and International School of Choueifat - Doha third.
"When Carnegie Mellon opened its branch campus at Qatar Foundation (QF), we thought it a good idea to establish an outreach programme that helps high school students understand concepts in Stem fields, and Botball does this," said Mohamed Mustafa, technical adviser of Botball in the Middle East. "General robotics is not only about computer science and engineering, it is also about the fields where it is applied. Through Botball, we also seek to expose students to other fields of science, such as geology." Participating schools included ASD, Hamza Bin Abdul Mutalib School, International School of Choueifat € Doha, Doha British School, Qatar Academy Sidra, Middle East International School, Doha Independent Secondary School for Boys, Doha College, Academic Bridge Programme, Al Khor International School, Doha Modern Indian School, DPS-Modern Indian School, Dukhan English School, Qatar Academy, Qatar Canadian School, The Lebanese School and Mohamed Bin Abdul Wahab Secondary Independent School.
CMUQ's first Botball programme was held in 2005 during the university's inaugural academic year at QF.
For more information about the computer science programme at CMUQ, visit http://www.qatar.cmu.edu/cs
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