ping pong table: CMUQ robotics course concludes

Web posted at: 5/29/2006 4:57:17
Source ::: The Peninsula

doha • A seven-week robotics programming course by the Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar concluded at the City Center Mall on Saturday with the second International Botball Challenge.

Omar Bin Khattab Scientific School won the challenge with the highest overall score. Al Khor International School came second while the third prize went to went to Amna Bint Wahhab Independent School.

Apart from the three winning schools, Doha College, American School Doha, International School of Choueifat also took part in this year's challenge to showcase their autonomous robots, which were created with the help of Carnegie Mellon Qatar.

Teams from each school designed, developed, programmed and documented their robots. The teams competed against each other on a playing field the size of a ping-pong table in a high energy, non-destructive tournament.

Elizabeth Whitewolf, Botball production manager and competition judge said: "The winning team had a great robot; it was designed well and had great engineering behind it. Not only that, the programming was amazing."

Botball is a US based organisation that introduces robotics to high schools. Student teams are equipped with a Lego Mindstorm robot, along with instruction on how to programme it to move autonomously through a course. The programming sessions conclude with a challenge - student teams are pitted against one another to see whose robot completes the course. The winning team also must demonstrate the work they've done in order to programme their robot.

An intensive two-day robotics workshop was arranged by Carnegie Mellon Qatar seven weeks prior to the competition at the university's campus. During the workshop, participating schools were given the necessary background and expertise to build and programme robots.