Texas A&M at Qatar’s annual 3D Challenge encourages use of cutting-edge technologies to solve real-world challenges
Published May 28, 2017Inventors from several of Qatar’s leading institutions showcased their creative applications of cutting-edge technology in the 3D Challenge hosted by Texas A&M University at Qatar.
Two competitions — the 3D Printing Competition and Visualization Development Competition — make up the 3D Challenge, and together the contests are designed to promote innovation through advanced technology. The competitions are open to innovators from Education City and across Qatar, and enable users to develop and port their applications to visualization and 3D printing systems. Projects are judged on several criteria, including creativity and innovation, functionality and usefulness, feasibility, and student involvement.
Now in its ninth year, the Visualization Development Competition invites researchers to submit proposals to develop research projects using Texas A&M at Qatar’s powerful 3D Immersive Visualization Facility, which utilizes scientific visualization to create three-dimensional images and graphics that aid in analyzing complex numerical representation. This technology helps scientists see data sets in new ways so that they can find patterns or relationships and communicate their data to others. Viewers feel completely immersed in the experience, and all images are displayed in 3D with the use of special goggles.
First place went to Dr. Jeff Cheng-Lung Lee and his collaborators of Qatar Police College for their project “Virtual Reality and 3D animation for crime scenes Investigation”. Second place went to Dr. Bilal Mansoor and his team from Texas A&M at Qatar for their project “Interactive 3D Virtual Reality Based Class Rooms: Making STEM Education Real.”
3D printing technologies are playing a key role in creating new business and new business opportunities. It was with this understanding that Texas A&M at Qatar established its unique 3-D printing facility — the first of its kind in Qatar — to allow students, designers, researchers and engineers to step beyond the virtual barriers and interact with real-world objects, and the 3-D Printing competition supports this goal.
First place in the 2017 3D Printing Competition went to the project “Custom Design Snorkel Fitting” by Kathleen Bates from Texas A&M University at Qatar. Finishing second was the project “Video Laryngoscopy for Endotracheal Intubation” by Dr. Nabil Shallik from Hamad Medical Corporation.
Dr. Hassan S. Bazzi, associate dean of research at Texas A&M at Qatar, said, “Texas A&M University at Qatar is proud to be able to continue supporting scholarship that uses cutting-edge 3D visualization, graphics and 3D printing technologies. Thanks to the support of Qatar Foundation and our own technology enterprise, Texas A&M at Qatar is home to some of the best computing, visualization and printing resources available on the market today. Some of the proposals in this year’s 3D Challenge prompted us to think about new and novel applications of visualization and printing technologies, and from this, it is clear that Texas A&M at Qatar and its visualization and printing technology are a valuable resource for Qatar.”
Yasser Al-Hamidi, technical lab manager in the Mechanical Engineering Program, organized this year’s 3D Printing Competition. Dr. Othmane Bouhali, director of research computing as well as the TEES Advanced Scientific Computing Center, organized the Visualization Competition. Mechanical engineering professor Dr. Hamid Parsaei and Dr. Michael Aupetit from the Qatar Computing Research Institute served as judges.