Dubai: A team from Dubai Modern High School won first prize in the storage category for middle schools by demonstrating their robot’s ability to effectively move storage boxes to a specified destination at the annual Robotics Competition hosted by the University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD).
The annual competition saw 26 school teams from across Dubai and Sharjah compete in technological skills as they negotiated a range of challenges.
The event was organised by Dr Zeenath Khan, assistant professor at UOWD and her team of university students, led by Priyanka Harish. Around 60 participants from local and international schools took part in this year’s event, which saw students compete in three different challenges: volleyball soccer, storage and the open category.
The teams were set different technical challenges according to their category — primary, middle or high school — while a separate competition allowed students of any age to demonstrate their innovation in an open contest of robotic design, themed ‘Robotics for Youth’.
JSS Private School won the first prize in the high school section.
In the volleyball soccer category, Ammar Yaser, Hamood Hassan and Ali Ebrahim from Dubai Modern High School, and Jainam Harshal Doshi, Yashwardhan Sonu Gupta and Pavlo Shvaiko from Victoria International School won the first prizes in the middle school and high school sections, respectively.
In the open category, Our Own High School won the first prize with their Future of Farming project. The students built a robotic machine that not only does traditional farming activities, but also scientifically measure various parameters, such as soil moisture and water level that are critical to plants.
The second place was shared by Christopher Pederson, Abhiraj Gupta, Aadi Verma and Anneka Willmoth from Jumeirah English Speaking School and Kshitij Sharma, Pranav Prem, Aditya Subramanian from Our Own High School.
All high school winners received scholarships for undergraduate programmes at UOWD once they graduate from high school. Prizes were presented by Dr Obada Al Khatib and Dr Haile-Selassie Rajamani, both members of the judging panel, as well as Dr Farhad Oroumchian, associate dean of UoWD’s Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences and the founder of the Robotics competition.
“Each year, the students never fail to impress us with their astonishing talents and innovative projects. Their ability to identify problems and demonstrate their ability to think outside the box and to find suitable solutions at their age is truly inspiring,” said Dr Oroumchian.