Staff Reporter
QATAR Academy beat out its fellow competitors to win the Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar’s Botball Robotics Challenge. One of the four area schools to participate, Qatar Academy edged out the competition by scoring the highest points overall.
Omar Bin al-Khattab Educational Complex for Boys (known as the Scientific School) was placed second, followed by the International School of Choueifat, with the fourth place going to the American School of Doha.
Carnegie Mellon faculty Matthew Mason, professor of computer science and robotics and director of the Robotics Institute, and Illah Nourbakhsh, associate professor of robotics, the Robotics Institute, judged the event.
“The scoring awards the most points across three categories, and Qatar Academy performed the best overall,” said professor Nourbakhsh.
The tournament included three competitive rounds - website documentation design, a qualifying round and the double-elimination championship round. Points were given to the teams based on their performance in all three areas.
The Qatar Academy team included Mateen Kamal, Mohamed Rezwan al-Islam, Josh Ilori, Tammam al-Ghrawi and Abdul Latif Tubailah. “We worked hard and it was a combined team effort. We followed the motto of ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ when it came to programming our robots,” the winning team said.
Botball (www.botball.org) is a unique approach to robotics curriculum that emphasises learning through practical application. The programme was developed in 1993 in the US by KISS Institute for Practical Robotics (KIPR), and this is the first international chapter to host a competition. |
