A team of high school students who investigated a phenomenon in the oil industry that can make it difficult to recover oil, won ‘Best Engineering Research Project’ in the third annual Summer Engineering Academy organised and hosted by Texas A&M University at Qatar (Tamuq) and Maersk Oil Qatar.
The Summer Engineering Academy, an elite 10-day science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)) enrichment programme, is part of the Dhia: Engineering Leaders partnership between Tamuq and Maersk Oil Qatar that aims to attract young Qataris to STEM fields, which are critical to the success of Qatar National Vision 2030.
Members of the winning team are Eric Frohlich, Fatima Alnajar, Mohab Bosila, Saidatul Zairin, Salma Ibrahim and Sara al-Banna from Raba’a al-Adawiya Secondary Girls’ School, International School of London-Qatar and International School of Choueifat.
A team that designed a smart helmet to help monitor the health of Qatar’s construction workers during the intense summer heat won the ‘Outstanding Technical Communication’ award.
Alya Alkawari, who won the ‘Best Presenter’ award, said: “The Summer Engineering Academy provided me with the opportunity to explore the STEM fields more than before, especially since this project emphasises a certain major offered at Texas A&M University at Qatar.”
During the Summer Engineering Academy, 20 academically outstanding grade 11 students, who were named Qatar National Vision scholars, worked with Texas A&M faculty members on real-life, hands-on research projects related to Qatar’s research challenges in energy, environment, healthcare and cyber security.
The Summer Engineering Academy aims to introduce students to advanced topics in engineering and science while teaching important problem-solving skills.The students also learned how to communicate technical ideas and put these lessons to the test at the end of the programme when they presented their individual projects and research findings to Texas A&M at Qatar faculty members who served as judges.
Dr Nayef Alyafei, assistant professor of petroleum engineering and a graduate of Tamuq, led the winning team with Dr Mohamed Fadlelmula.
Both said they were impressed with the progress the students had made during the two-week programme.
“As a teacher, my role is to make sure the next generation of scientists and engineers is inspired and that they do well. These students were excited to learn and they liked what they learned, it’s so rewarding to see them appreciate the beauty of science and engineering,” Alyafei said.
The Summer Engineering Academy ran concurrently with the Future Engineers Programme in which more than 30 students rising into grades 10, 11 and 12 built desert emergency kits, including an emergency communications device, and investigated various water-purification technologies.
During the 10-day programme, the participants assembled a walkie-talkie called a ‘talkiepi’, which has a simple push-to-talk interface to communicate with other talkiepis in the channel.
Young achievers pose with their awards along with officials.
