Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar expanded its CS4Qatar computer science workshop to high school students

The two-day developmental workshop, held at Education City, was designed to teach high schools students about Computer Science and how it is applied to all aspects of life. Nearly 400 high school students from Qatar applied for the 120 seats in the weekend program.

"This is yet another way of bringing computer science to the community. We've had two successful workshops for teachers and we wanted to provide students with an opportunity to experience the richness of Computer Science as a field," says Mark Stehlik, Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science.

"We're very pleased with the number of students who were interested in attending."

CS4Qatar consisted of three sessions. One was on Computer Science Puzzles. In this session, students learned how to analyze and then creatively solve computer science-related puzzles that helped them practice basic problem solving skills.

In the second session, Programming With Alice, students used an object-based 3-D graphics-authoring environment to learn computer science programming principles.

The third session was an Introduction to Robotics. In this hands-on workshop, students were introduced to some of the latest cutting-edge robot technology. They also were instructed on how robot Artificial Intelligence works, and were given the opportunity to program a robot to complete a complex task.

Mohammed Hamdouna, a senior student at Omar Bin Al-Khattab Scientific Secondary School, was one of the students who came to CS4Qatar to learn more about computer science.

"A few people from Carnegie Mellon came to my school to talk about computer science. I became interested in it and wanted to learn more about what computer science is," says Hamdouna.

"These days you have to know computers to be successful. Everything depends on them. So I came this weekend to see if I'm on the right track and if this is what I want to study."

Many people associate computer science solely with programming. This workshop showed students that computer science is a much broader field than that.

"It's about solving interesting problems, creating graphics and making robots move. Computer science is the application of computer technology to solving real-world problems," says Stehlik, who conducted the Alice workshop.

The CS4Qatar program was held twice in 2007 for high school teachers. This is the first time the event was offered to the students directly. "The CS4Qatar workshop is a great opportunity for any high school student who is curious about the world of computing; is interested in the fields of computer graphics and robotics; or wants to experience the world of computer science," says Stehlik.

Participating schools in CS4Qatar included: Ahmed Bin Hanbal, Al Andalus, Al Bayan Educational Complex for Girls, Al Eman Secondary Independent School, Al Khor International School, Al Wakra Independent Secondary School for Boys, Al Wakra Independent Secondary School for Girls, American School of Doha, Doha Independent Secondary School, Global Academy International, Ibn Taimia Secondary School, Ideal Indian School, International School of Choueifat, Khalifa Independent School, M.E.S Indian School, Omar Bin Al-Khattab Scientific Secondary School, Qatar International School, Qatar International Technical School, Raba'a Al Adawia High School and the Cambridge School Doha.
Additional Computer Science workshops for both students and teachers will be held in the future.