Promise: Qatari students, seen here at the National Robot Olympiad 2013, are hopeful of a promising showing in Jakarta.
Community ReportQatar is ready to take the shine to the 2013 World Robot Olympiad. The scene of the action — beginning today — will be the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. Students from ten champion robotics teams in Qatar will test their skills against more than 40 nations in the Olympiad. The Qatar teams qualified from among 200 local schools that competed in the recent Qatar National Robot Olympiad.The prestigious world event, now in its 10th year, aims to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) among students. It is open to those between the ages of seven and nineteen who will compete in regular, open and GEN II Football categories using the LEGO MINDSTORM robotics platform.World Robot Olympiad (WRO) Competition is a worldwide robotics competition. Participants had to progress through a number of qualifying stages before being selected to participate in the 2013 WRO final.The theme for the Open Category and the challenges for Regular Category this year is World Heritage, especially in Indonesia. All challenges are appropriate in terms of difficulty for the different age categories — and yet they are challenging, fun and related to promoting and preserving our world heritage.What makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.Participant must choose only one site of the project from the list (World Heritage List section.)The World Heritage List includes 962 properties forming part of the cultural and natural heritage which the World Heritage Committee considers as having outstanding universal value.These include 745 cultural (cultural site), 188 natural (catural site) and 29 mixed (cixed site), properties in 157 states/parties. As of September 2012, 190 states/parties have ratified the World Heritage Convention.Maersk Oil Qatar is sponsoring the participation of students in the World Robot Olympiad as part of its ongoing support of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in Qatar that includes the GO ROBOT schools programme. The initiative has involved more than 1,500 students in the past two years, and includes the annual Qatar National Robotics Olympiad.In what would be a major coup for STEM education in Qatar, the country is bidding to host the 2015 World Robot Olympiad for the first time. Hosting the world event would be a catalyst for even greater local participation and mean the inclusion of up to 36 teams from Qatar — more than a 200% increase on this year’s participation level. Sheikh Faisal al-Thani, Deputy Managing Director of Maersk Oil Qatar, said: “The recent National Robot Olympiad showed how the creativity of students can be improved by using the LEGO platform in a competitive and educational environment.” “In Jakarta, students from all over the world will further develop problem-solving skills while also learning about different cultures. Maersk Oil Qatar operates one of the world’s most complex oil fields, at Al Shaheen, so my hope is that many of these students will use their interest in STEM subjects and become future leaders in Qatar’s energy industry,” he added. “If Qatar is fortunate enough to win the hosting rights for the 2015 Olympiad, I’m sure it will be a further catalyst for students. Good luck to all the participants from Qatar this weekend,” he said in conclusion.More than 1,200 students from around the world will take part in the World Robot Olympiad in the Indonesian capital starting today and ending November 17, which is the culmination of months of hard work. Learning through robotics crosses multiple curriculum subjects, meaning students must learn and apply knowledge in science, engineering, mathematics, and computer programming.Dr Theodore Chiasson, Dean of Information Technology at the College of the North Atlantic — Qatar and the World Robot Olympiad representative in Qatar, said: “The World Robot Olympiad is a chance for Qatari students to compete against the best in the world but also to enrich their lives by learning more about different cultures through exchanging ideas and meeting new friends. I am sure they will do Qatar proud.”The first World Robotics Olympiad competition was held in 2004 and involved 12 countries, today it has grown to close to 40 nations with 400 teams participating. The sponsorMaersk Oil is an international oil and gas company with operated production of about 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from Denmark, the UK, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Algeria. Exploration activities are ongoing in Angola, Norway, the US Gulf of Mexico, Greenland, Iraqi Kurdistan and in the producing countries. Turning marginal and challenging fields into commercial successes has been the cornerstone of Maersk Oil’s business since 1962. Maersk Oil focuses on pioneering technologies and harnessing talent to continue to operate safely and successfully, creating value for partners and host governments. Maersk Oil is a fully-owned subsidiary of the global conglomerate, the A.P. Moller–Maersk Group. Maersk Oil Qatar began operations in Qatar in 1992, when an Exploration and Production Sharing Agreement (EPSA) was signed with Qatar to develop the Al Shaheen Field in Block 5, offshore Qatar. Maersk Oil Qatar’s last Field Development Plan (FDP 2005) was a US $6 billion programme which included the drilling of more than 160 production and water injection wells over a six year period. The plan also included the construction and offshore installation of fifteen new platforms with accommodation and production facilities, which is now complete. As part of the current production sharing agreement between Qatar Petroleum (representing the State of Qatar) and Maersk Oil to develop the Al Shaheen oil field, Qatar, a new field development plan (FDP 2012) was approved in November 2012. * Check out for live updates at www.wro2013.org