High School students taking part in activities during the Future Engineers STEM camp at Texas A&M University at Qatar. Occidental Petroleum of Qatar Ltd. (Oxy Qatar) sponsored the programme.
Texas A&M University at Qatar hosted 35 high school students from around Qatar for the 10-day Future Engineers STEM programme designed to foster and encourage students’ passion for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
This year’s Future Engineers programme, ‘RoboChallenge: Engineering Energy Sustainability,’ led high school students rising into grades 10, 11 and 12 through a focused engineering project.
The theme was selected based on the challenges engineers face in the real world, according to Dr Mohamed Gharib, who led the programme alongside STEM experts Benjamin Cieslinski and Tala Katbeh. “Future Engineers is intended to let participants learn an introduction to renewable energy, the fundamentals of robotics, 3D CAD design and basic programming,” Gharib said.
“The students came in expecting lots of hands-on work and lots of fun! This programme equips students with the necessary STEM tools and inspires them to release their imaginations to develop real advances in robotics engineering.”
Gharib said the students participating in this programme learned several different things, from renewable energy sources to robotics to mechanical designs, programming and radio-controlled systems.
The students competed in teams to design, build, programme and test their robots. In the final stage of the camp, students presented their designs to a panel of robotics experts.
Majid ElKhalifa, a participant, said, “Despite having some experience in the field of robotics, I learned a vast amount of knowledge about the topic, especially regarding motors and the different types of brackets that hold the robot together.”
In addition to technical knowledge and skills, Future Engineers also taught participants the importance of teamwork and the value of collaboration, said Habiba Abdelhafez, who said her team overcame several technical challenges while building the robot by working as a team “and taking into consideration other people’s opinions.”
