Qatar University (QU) witnessed the closing ceremony of the “Green Technology Competition 2021” in its first edition, which was organized by the College of Engineering (CENG), and in coordination with the Department of Electrical Engineering (EE) and the student branch of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) at QU.
The competition was launched in the first semester of the current academic year 2021-2022, which aimed to engage secondary school students to enhance their technical and basic programming skills through designing a “solar energy tracker” and explore the aspects of engineering design.
The number of participants in the competition reached 50 students from 10 different teams of Qatari independent schools. The closing ceremony of the competition was preceded by specialized workshops for the participants to aid them in their engineering design process, which included basic workshops in Arduino microcontroller, and another in 3D-printing. At the closing ceremony, the competing teams presented their solar tracker models to the competition jury for the purpose of evaluating the models based on pre-defined criteria, such as design complexity, system response time, creativity and originality of the design, and explanation of the difficulties that the teams face and how they were mitigated. The jury consisted of four members affiliated with the College of Engineering, including Prof. Rashid A. Al-Ammari, faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering and former Dean of CENG, and Prof. Nader M. Meskin, faculty member in the Department of EE, Engineer Abdulrahman H. Abunada, R&D Engineer at Barzan Holdings, and Engineer Yahya M. Alhomsi, general manager and co-founder of Voltaat.
At the end of the ceremony, in the presence of Prof. Abdelmagid Hamouda, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at CENG, the top three winners of the competition were announced and honored. Jassim bin Hamad Secondary School ranked first, followed by Abdullah bin Ali Al-Misnad Secondary School in second place, and third place went to Al Wakra Secondary School.
Prof. Hamouda expressed his happiness to participate in the closing ceremony, which he considered to be evident of the Qatari schools’ system to be following latest international standards and developments, and the impacts of this advancement were reflected in the presented models. Moreover, Dr. Mohammed A. Al-Hitmi, Head of the Electrical Engineering Department, and Prof. Nizar Zorba, a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering and the advisor for the student branch of IEEE, expressed their happiness and satisfaction with the success of this competition in achieving its purpose, which is to expose the participants to the engineering design process, and spread engineering culture amongst them and cherish them in the field of engineering, especially electrical and electronics engineering, which the community and the Qatari labor market is in need of, as well as to encourage them to join the Department of EE at QU, where the department has won several international awards, and that the program is academically accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).
In his statement, Eng. Mohammad Murtaza, Head of Student Branch of IEEE at Qatar University said: “The competition was a success, as the students showed great motivation in their presentations of their work, and their hard work was evident through the submitted designs and models. Although the main theme of the design was unified, each school created its own unique design. This confirms to us the success of the competition in conveying a glimpse of what engineering design really is to the participating students.”
During the interview, Eng. Tamim M. Al-Mulla, Vice President of the Student Branch of IEEE at Qatar University, assured that the branch will hold more activities similar to this competition in its future versions with new and diverse topics to unleash the capabilities of the participating students, but with the same goals as in the current version of the competition. Finally, he expressed his thanks and gratitude to the members of the IEEE Student Branch’s team at QU for succeeding this event, and highlighted on the role of QU represented by the CENG in supporting its students to hold events and extra-curricular activities that contribute to spreading engineering culture and awareness in various fields.
Source: QATAR UNIVERSITY
