Countdown begins to the Botball Final Challenge in Doha

Botball is a robotics competition, introduced in the United States, where high school students build autonomously operated robots that compete against each other in a non-destructive tournament.

The 2009 Botball season is based on the theme of "Alternative Energy." Points will be awarded to teams who direct their robots to successfully generate hydroelectric power, install wind turbines, simulate reducing their carbon footprint by using green fuels and recycle unused materials.

Botball kicked off in Doha with a two-day workshop February 27 and 28, and in Cairo on March 6 and 7. At these workshops participants received information about the competition and were given robot kits and reusable components to build their own Lego Mindstorm robot.

Since the workshops, students have been busy designing, building and programming their robots to maneuver on the game board without the use of remote control.

A student from the International School of Arts & Sciences in Dubai summarizes the challenges they faced in building their robots and their perseverance to complete their project:

"Creating a robot requires teamwork, care, passion, and, above all, patience. Each piece must be delicately handled and carefully placed in its corresponding position. Each error must be investigated thoroughly in order to understand how it arose and so as not to be repeated. We combined all of our intellects, and each of our talents, so as to produce our final robot."

The April 25 competition in Qatar will be the 5th annual Botball event in the region. This year's competition welcomes the addition of teams from Saudi Arabia, bringing the number of participating schools to 26 from five different countries.

The ISAS Robotics team looks forward to the upcoming competition in Qatar: "We are thrilled to be participating in such an event and are excited to see what our contenders have prepared. We have worked long hours, brushing off thousands of beads of sweat as a result of meticulous concentration and precision, to develop our beloved robot. We cannot wait to show our competitors the outcome of our efforts, of which we are extremely proud."

During the competition, each team plays unopposed on the official game board. This determines seed ranking going into the head-to-head double elimination tournament that is held in the afternoon. The grand prize for the winning team will be to travel to the United States in July to attend the Global Conference on Educational Robotics.

Seeding Rounds will begin at 10 a.m. and Double Elimination Rounds will begin at approximately 1:30 p.m. Immediately following the double elimination round, at approximately 5 p.m., the awards ceremony will take place. The Botball Robotics Challenge is free and is open to the general public.

Participating schools from the UAE include: Al Mawakeb School - Al Barsha, Al Mawakeb School - Al Garhoud and International School of Arts and Sciences.

This is the third year Al Jazeera Children's Channel has partnered with Carnegie Mellon Qatar to cover the robotics event. Al Jazeera Children's Channel will air fourteen special episodes in July and August covering Botball. Clips from the 5th Regional Botball Robotics Challenge will be posted to Facebook.