HOPES of winning a regional robotics tournament were dashed for six Bahrain enthusiasts due to a programming flaw in their robot. The delegation from Ibn Al Khuldoon National School was the first from Bahrain to take part in the sixth Regional Botball Robotics Challenge. The students, from grade six to eight, attended the tournament at the Carnegie Mellon University, Qatar, with their computer science teacher Mazen Nouiehed. "We couldn't participate in the seeding round because our robot was not fully programmed to do so," said Mr Nouiehed. "The tournament, however, was an incredible experience altogether. "We're planning on participating next year as well and we're planning on taking more high school students rather than ones from the middle school." The Botball competition, organised by non-profit educational organisation KISS Institute for Practical Robotics (KIPR), operates on a four-season basis. This includes the Winter season, when educator workshops are held for specialists and team leaders on the latest developments in robotics technology. They are also given the necessary kit for students to come up with a functional robot of their own. This year's tournament saw 30 high schools from Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Zimbabwe compete against each other with their manually-built robots in a non-destructive tournament. The school participated in the Botball tournament to add to the existing curriculum. "When we introduced programming language C++ in high school, there was a need to provide hands-on-experience to our students so that they get to learn programming better," said Mr Nouiehed. "Next year, we'll allocate the building of the robot more effectively. "High school students will handle the programming and we'll leave the designing to the middle school." Time was also another factor that undermined the group's effort, he added. "We didn't get sufficient time to build our robot. This is the first time we are competing in such an event," said Mr Nouiehed. "We were up against veterans who have participated for the past six years. "We plan to host workshops for our students two or three months ahead of future tournaments so that they are well prepared next year." Students described the tournament as a great learning experience. "We tried to compete in the tournament and attempted to repair the robot, but the Botball authorities who inspected it said we couldn't participate with a faulty design," said 14-year-old Meshal Al Mannai. "This being our first year, we were warned before that such a thing could happen. We took the chance and though we couldn't win, we learned a lot from other participants. "We were at the end of our academic year and we had to divide our attention between our studies and building the robot and that didn't go down too well. "We spent two hours every Saturday for a month-and-a-half while the other participants worked on their robots for every day of the week for four months. "We also saw that some of the teams had quite a lot of members, while we had just six." Undeterred, the students and their teacher expressed their confidence in building a successful robot and winning the tournament next year. "I'm confident that with adequate preparation and foresight we will finish first, second or third next year," said Mr Nouiehed. |
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