DOHA: Students from 23 high schools in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE learned first hand how to build their own robots at the two-day Botball workshop held at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar on Friday and Saturday.
Botball is a US-based organization that introduces robotics to high school students. At the intensive two-day workshop, the teams were given the necessary background and expertise to design and program their own Lego Mindstorm robot.
“We are very happy to join the Botball program this year for the first time,” said Abdulaziz Sa’ad Al-Jebreen, Robotics Trainer at Riyadh Schools — Prince Salman Center for Creating Leaders. “This high school competition will positively affect our students; it will broaden their knowledge and teach them sound programming skills. We hope to learn and share this knowledge with the other schools, and we’re looking forward to participate in the global conference after winning the Qatar competition.”
Over the next eight weeks, the students will work with their teachers and mentors to build and program their own robots. These robots will then compete against each other in a nondestructive competition on April 25 at Carnegie Mellon Qatar. At this competition the robots must operate autonomously, meaning they move on their own without any remote control from the students. At the competition, teams also must demonstrate the work they’ve done in order to program their robot.
“A lot of students think robots and artificial intelligence are something that is very difficult and that they could never be part of,” said Chuck Thorpe, dean of Carnegie Mellon Qatar and former head of the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute. “Botball not only shows students that robotics is something they can do — and do well — it also shows them how to work as a team, how to plan a project, how to use their math skills and how to have fun while you learn.”
This is the fifth year for Botball, and the first year teams from Saudi Arabia have joined the competition. The addition of Saudi Arabia brings the number of participating schools to 26 from five different countries. Grand prize for the winning team of the April 25 competition will be to travel to the United States in July to attend the Global Conference on Educational Robotics.
Participating schools from Saudi Arabia are Riyadh Schools for Boys, Riyadh Schools for Girls and Dar-Al Fikr School in Jeddah. Schools from Kuwait are: Al RU’YA Bilingual School and Kuwait National English School. Schools from Egypt are: Canadian International School — Egypt, Oasis International School and International School of Choueifat Cairo. Schools from the UAE are: Al Mawakeb School — Al Garhoud, Al Mawakeb School — Al Barsha and International School of Arts and Sciences.
Participating schools from Qatar are: Al Eman Independent Secondary School for Girls, Al Jazeera Academy, American School of Doha, Amna Bint Wahab Independent Secondary School for Girls, Doha College, Doha Independent Secondary School for Boys, Omar Bin Al- Khattab Scientific School, Qatar Academy, Al-Wakra Independent Secondary School for Boys, Gulf English School, Al-Bayan Independent Secondary School for Girls, Qatar Technical Independent School, Al-Shahaniya Independent School, Hamad Bin Abdullah Bin Jassim Independent School for Boys, Lebanese School in Doha and Hamza bin Abdul Moutalib Independent School for Boys.
