Robotics Building and Programming Tournament

    Palestinian elementary and middle school students participated in the annual tournament organized by and hosted at the Najjad Zeenni IT Center of Excellence @ Birzeit University on Tuesday March 1, 2011.

Competition Theme
This year, teams used LEGO Mindstorms NXT robots to design, build, and operate robots that complete biomedical engineering-related missions.  Participants were also asked to present a research report in order to share their research findings. 

Design, programming, & teamwork
The competition is comprised of 4 main sections: programming and design, teamwork, technical research, and field challenge.  Student teams are interviewed by a panel of judges which is comprised of university professors and engineering professionals.  Teams are evaluated on innovative robot design, teamwork, research design, and performance of the robot in the competition field.  In addition, teams are interviewed by the judges to discuss the design and operation of their robot. 

Technical Interview
The tournament is meant to ignite students' interest in science and technology by teaching them how to design, program, and prototype fully-functional and autonomous robots.

Judges look for teams whose work stands out because of its innovation and/or navigational consistency. To assess innovation, the judges watch the robots work, looking for actions that impress them. They also interview team members to reveal the less obvious unique and inventive ideas. To assess navigational consistency, the judges interview the teams to learn what solid principles and best practices were used to reduce variability and errors.

Winning Teams
Of the 20 participating schools, 3 teams were chosen as champions

1.      Orthodox Bethany School - Ezareyyeh

2.      Askar First Primary Girls School - UNRWA

3.      Askar Third Primary Girls School - UNRWA