By Joey Aguilar
Staff Reporter
Qatar’s DPS-Modern Indian School bested 21 other schools from across the Middle East and North Africa to bag the first place in the 10th Regional Botball Robotics Challenge held at the Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ) yesterday.
The champion team, which also won the Seeding category and included for the Judge’s Choice award, will be sent to Los Angeles in mid-summer for the 2014 Global Conference on Educational Robotics. They will also compete in the national robotics Olympiad in Qatar this year.
Some 200 students from countries like Oman, Kuwait, Libya, Egypt and Qatar participated in the competition, which saw Doha College bagging the second place and the Hayah International Academy in Egypt coming third.
DPS-MIS team leader Yogesh Parthasarathy said it was the first time the school had been declared the champion in the annual competition.
“It’s glorious and right now we have no words to say to express what we feel,” he said. “It’s been a good experience.”
The final stages had gathered dozens of spectators, cheering for their respective teams as the robots performed their tasks.
“We made sure the robot is reliable and consistent on what it does,” Parthasarathy said, thanking his teammates and their coach, Avishek Jha.
For the Double Elimination, Al Ruya bilingual school won the first place followed by Hayah International Academy and Doha Independent Secondary School. The Hamza school from Kuwait was the only winner for the Documentation category.
The participants had joined in January a workshop that briefed them about the botball programme and prepared for the actual competition. Topics included basic programing, design and building techniques of the robots.
All the participants were given nine weeks to prepare for the tournament.
Botball is an “action-packed robotics competition” for secondary school students that develops knowledge and practical understanding through a hands-on experience with science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The Botball event introduces secondary school students to the world of robotics, equipping them with the necessary skills and experience to independently design, build and program autonomous robots using “C” – the most widely used programing language in industry and academia.
Participants were given the chance to interact with teachers and students of CMUQ.
The other participating schools were: Al Ruya bilingual School, Al-Bayan Bilingual School, Benghazi European School, Indian School Muscat, Youssef Bin Aissa Secondary School, The British School of Kuwait, Academic Bridge Programme, Al Khor International School, American School of Doha, Doha British School, Doha Independent Secondary School, Dukhan English School, Hamza School (Kuwait), International School Of Choueifat, Qatar Academy, Qatar International School and Tariq Bin Zyiad S.I.S.