SHEFFIELD, England, 2 December 2004 — A team of 10 Saudi youngsters from the Eastern Province took part in an international robotics competition here yesterday.
The youngsters, aged 10-14, are students at the Talent Center, a private institute in Alkhobar teaching a variety of high-tech classes. All of the students are enrolled in other Eastern Province schools.
The idea of the competition, held under the auspices of the Lego League, is to have youngsters build robots that are programmed by computer to perform a variety of tasks that disabled people might find useful in their daily lives.
Although the robots are made from the building blocks of the popular children’s construction system, these robots use a variety of motors, sensors and mechanical devices, which are controlled by a computer-programmed brain.
“These kids are applying computer programming, process control automation and other skills usually taught in the third year of university,” said Saeed A. Saeed, a Saudi Aramco computer engineer who organized the Talent Center and the trip with the sponsorship of Inma Technologies and several other Easter Province firms.
During the visit, the Saudi youngsters visited Sheffield University, one of the United Kingdom’s premier engineering schools.
One of the presenters was Dr. Sally McArthur, a biomedical materials engineer at the university. She told the youngsters about the important role petrochemicals are playing in a variety of advances in the medical field, from joint replacement polymers to micro “scaffolds” used to help form cells in stem-cell research.
Saudi Arabia is one of the world leaders in petrochemical production with several efforts under way to strengthen the Kingdom’s already dominant global position.
The contest continues with the Saudi team taking part in robotics trials and also presenting an invention called a “Sladder,” which is basically an extremely portable 36-inch stepladder that slides open that was designed to help the disabled but may have uses in the construction field as well.
