Manir and Abdullah with Dr MacLeod.

Executive from College of the North Atlantic – Qatar (CNA-Q) (joined members of the School of Engineering Technology and the Department of Applied Research to celebrate the success of two engineering students at the recent Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum.
Abdullah Kayyali and Manir al-Faisal were awarded the Research Excellence Award for environmental research for their work with home automation sensors.
The project grew out of a previous award-winning project on green home automation. When the students installed the sensors in the prototype villa they realised a problem – if the occupant sat idle in the room for a period of time the lights or air-conditioning would turn off.
The students came up with a solution to mount sensors on the door that would recognise when someone entered the room and would not turn off until the signal was once again broken by someone leaving the room.
“Every major project in the world starts with a problem,” said Dr Ken MacLeod, CNA-Q president. “These students took a problem and found a solution for it.”
Abdullah and Manir drew upon their own electrical engineering expertise for the creation of the sensor, but had to quickly learn other disciplines to complete their project. “From 3D modelling to microprocessor programming, we had to learn it all,” explained Abdullah.
The students took full advantage of the labs and equipment that CNA-Q provides. “We have friends in other universities who are doing engineering research, but I think we have an advantage over them because we are a technical institution,” said Abdullah.
The project abstract was one of 388 submissions to the forum and one of only 20 chosen for oral presentations. In addition to the QR10,000 prize, the students gained the experience of presenting in front of a panel of international judges.
“We were nervous to present in front of such important judges,” said Manir. “However they seemed very excited to see our project. They kept interrupting our presentation to ask
questions.”