Lebanese School of Qatar wins “Botball 2016” at Carnegie Mellon Qatar

Winning high school team to represent Qatar in global Botball competition

DOHA, QATAR – Students from the Lebanese School of Qatar won the 12th Botball Educational Robotics Program, hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar. The team will represent Qatar in the 2016 Global Conference on Educational Robotics in the USA.

About 225 high school students from independent and international schools across Qatar competed in Botball 2016. The objective of Botball is to engage high school students in computer science through a fun, competitive event.

Posing a different challenge each year, this year’s students were charged with helping the stranded “BotNaut” to survive on Mars until the rescue mission arrives. Students built the robots using starter kits provided by CMU-Q a few months ahead of the competition; they then programmed the robots to navigate through the “Martian” terrain.

The winning team from the Lebanese School of Qatar included coach Milad Al Helou and students Al Hassan Choukair, Georges Nasr, Jean Nmeir, Yammine Yammine, Layla Athamne, Maryline Mouawad, Chris Al Kache and Hadi Krayem. Tariq bin Ziyad Independent Secondary School for Boys secured second place and the American School of Doha came in third.

“Botball is an essential part of CMU-Q’s outreach to secondary students. Through the Botball competition, students learn the fundamentals of computer science,” said Ilker Baybars, dean and CEO of CMU-Q. “They learn that there is a precise logic and mathematical basis to programming, and we hope this experience opens their eyes to the possibility of pursuing careers in computer science.”