For Immediate Release
May 30, 2009
Contact: Jonathan Walsh, WPR, Dubai tel 050 4588610 Email: jon@wprme.com
Dubai American Academy sweeps the awards in the inaugural Dubai-Spartans Engineering Competition for UAE schools
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – The Dubai American Academy (DAA) won first place in all three awards of the inaugural Dubai-Spartans* Engineering Competition – a challenge for high school students interested in computer and electrical engineering – which was organised by Michigan State University (MSU) Dubai at the campus at Dubai International Academic City on Saturday May 30th. The event was organised by the MSU Dubai Computer Engineering Department with the support and sponsorship of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), UAE chapter.
Schools were invited to enter student teams (each comprising three students) to participate in the competition, which tested their ability to design, build, program and navigate a robot through an obstacle course (staircase), as well as a Math and Electric Circuit competition.
The Robotic competition was won by a DAA team of three grade 9 students: Jason Dietz; Dennis Heumann; and Robin Kempes. The DAA robot - called the 'Stair Climber Robot' - moves like a caterpillar, using 18 wheels and 4 motors. It was programmed using NQC programming language. The students started programming this academic year and took robotics in the second semester; they first built robots for speed competitions. The team won a trophy and a cash prize of AED3,000 shared amongst the team. The Robotic competition was judged by a panel of three distinguished academics from the American University of Dubai and the American University of Sharjah.
Runners up prizes were presented to Dubai Modern High School (Electric Circuit and Robotic competitions) and Our Own High School, Al Warqa (Math competition).
All the participating students received a certificate and there were cash prizes for each winning team.
Dr Boutheina Tlili, Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at MSU Dubai, commented: “The first Dubai-Spartans Engineering Competition for schools in Dubai was a great success with the participating students showing a high degree of skill and enthusiasm for problem solving. They also had a lot of fun competing with each other through these friendly and informative team competitions. The aim is to encourage greater interest amongst students in science and engineering and this kind of competition works very well and plan to develop it into major annual tournament for schools in the UAE.”
*The ‘Spartan’ warrior is the sporting mascot of MSU and students are commonly referred to as ‘Spartans’.
MSU is one of the world’s top 100 universities.
www.dubai.msu.edu
Learn more about the DSEC2009 event from the press release on May 28, 2009.