Teams of students from nine high schools from Qatar, Kuwait, the UAE and Egypt will put their robots to the test in the Final Middle East BOTBALL Tournament on May 24 at the Diplomatic Club.
The students have been busy designing, building and programming their Lego© Mindstorm robots for the past several weeks in preparation for the competition that is hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. The teams will compete against each other on a playing field the size of a ping-pong table in a high energy, non-destructive tournament.
The participating schools from Qatar are: Doha College, Omar bin Al Khattab Scientific School and Al Bayan Independent Secondary School for Girls. The schools from Kuwait are: British School of Kuwait and Al RU'YA Bilingual School. The schools from the UAE are: Al Mawakeb School - Al Garhoud and Al Mawakeb School - Al Barsha. The schools from Egypt are: American School of Alexandria and Canadian International School - Egypt.
These teams earned a place in the final regional tournament after winning the country-level competitions in Qatar, Kuwait, UAE and Egypt.
BOTBALL is a US-based organization that introduces robotics to high schools. Student teams are equipped with a Lego© Mindstorm robot, along with instruction on how to program 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 program their robot.
The winning team in the final tournament will receive a trip from Carnegie Mellon Qatar to Norman, Oklahoma, USA to attend the 2008 Global Conference on Educational Robotics and meet middle school and high school students, educators, robotics enthusiasts, and professionals from across the world. Additionally, Al Jazeera Children's Channel is airing a six-part documentary on BOTBALL. The dates and times will be announced on the day of the tournament.
The Pen
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