DOHA, QATAR – The Al Mawakeb School – Al Garhoud from the UAE is the overall champion of the 5th Regional Botball® Robotics Challenge held at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. The Riyadh School from Saudi Arabia and the International School of Arts and Sciences from the UAE were the 2nd and 3rd place winners in an action-filled double elimination challenge with enthusiastic crowds cheering the teams on. It was truly a regional competition with the final four teams representing the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
“It was amazing”, said Jad Knayzeh, the main programmer of the winning team. “We didn’t expect to win. My advice for other teams in the future is to test, test and test the robots!” Mohammad Bdeir, the main builder on the team said: “we changed the program on the ground – as we were in competition. Don’t be afraid to make changes at the last minute. Our motto was to keep it small and simple.”
This year’s tournament had more than 200 students from 26 schools around the Middle East region participating in the final regional challenge with schools from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE and Qatar competing. The regional participation and interest in the robotics tournament has increased significantly since Carnegie Mellon brought Botball® to the region in 2005 with four teams taking part in the inaugural event.
“Building a robot and getting it to work is a challenging task that requires a combination of creativity and technical skill in science, engineering and mathematics. We use the Botball competition to create an environment where high school kids are engaged and inspired by the challenge of the task and the competitive element to learn the technical skills and apply their creativity to solve a difficult problem,” says Brett Browning, Ph.D., Senior Systems Scientist, Carnegie Mellon University. “The benefits of Botball are far reaching. The participants learn from direct experience about science and engineering, which engages them in pursuing technical careers. Indeed, many of our students in Education city have had Botball experience. It also teaches them about focusing their creativity, working in teams, and working towards deadlines. These are vital skills for any of the careers they may pursue. The students also get to meet and interact with a large and diverse population drawn from across the region. These interactions can lead to friendships and promote understanding that can only be of benefit to our future generation of leaders.”
The preparation for the final regional tournament kicked off nearly two months ago with workshops held in Qatar and Egypt. The participants received information about the competition and were given robot kits to build their own Lego© Mindstorm robot. During the tournament, teams face-off against each other with their robots scoring points for completing specified tasks during a two-minute round. The winner is the team whose robot scored the most points.
The winning team will receive a trip to Leesburg, Virginia in July to attend the 2009 Global Conference on Educational Robotics and meet middle school and high school students, robot enthusiasts, and professionals from around the world and to compete in the 2009 International Botball® Tournament.
Carnegie Mellon Qatar sends its thanks and congratulations to each of the participating schools for their hard work and efforts in preparing for the tournament. Schools from Qatar include 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.
From around the region, participating schools included Al RU’YA Bilingual School and Kuwait National English School from Kuwait, Al Mawakeb School – Al Garhoud, Al Mawakeb School – Al Barsha and International School of Arts and Sciences from the UAE and the Canadian International School – Egypt, Oasis International School and International School of Choueifat Cairo from Egypt. New to the tournament this year from Saudi Arabia were Riyadh School and Dar-Al Fikr School in Jeddah.
The judges for this year’s tournament were Justin Carlson, Yonina Cooper, Imran Fanaswala, Ameer Abdelsalam and Wael Ghazzawi, of Carnegie Mellon Qatar’s faculty and robotics staff.
Additionally, Al Jazeera Children’s Channel is airing a 14-episode series on Botball®. The first episode of the Botball® documentary will air in the summer
ABOUT BOTBALL®
Botball® was created in 1997 by the KISS Institute for Practical Robots (KIPR). The Botball® Educational Robotics Program engages middle and high school aged students in a team-oriented robotics competition based on National Science Education Standards. For more information, visit botball.org.
ABOUT CARNEGIE MELLON
With more than a century of academic excellence and innovative research, Carnegie Mellon University is a global leader in education with real-world applications. Consistently top ranked, Carnegie Mellon offers a distinct mix of programs to its 10,000 students around the globe. Core values of innovation, creativity, problem solving and collaborative teamwork provide the foundation for everything we do.
At the invitation of Qatar Foundation, Carnegie Mellon joined Education City in 2004. Here, Qatar Foundation has created a world-class center for scholarship and research that is the ideal complement to Carnegie Mellon’s tradition of innovation through collaboration. Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar offers its highly regarded undergraduate programs in business administration, computer science and information systems to students in Qatar and the Gulf Region.
related links: botball.org
