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Texas A&M at Qatar students participate in worldwide engineering competition

Published Feb 27, 2019

Engineering students from Texas A&M University at Qatar recently spent 48 hours designing, building and presenting ideas and technologies of benefit to the world during Invent for the Planet.

Started by Texas A&M University’s main campus in College Station, Texas (USA), Invent for the Planet asked students from 36 participating universities around the world to tackle the most challenging issues facing the world today in just 48 hours.

At each location, teams were formed based on a shared interest in one of the available need statements. Then over the following two days, the teams researched their topic, collaborated with mentors, came up with a plan and built a simple prototype. Each team then presented its product to a panel of judges.

First place and a $1000 prize went to the team of Farah Ramadan, Saad Moazam, Mowad Alaradi and Saly Mohamad for Expert Hire, an app that provides meaningful work to senior citizens. Expert Hire will now perfect their presentation before submitting a video to be judged remotely for a chance to be named the overall winner at a ceremony in April at the main campus.

Ramadan said, "As an engineer, Invent for The Planet benefitted us a lot. It gave us the ability to apply our education in a very open-ended fashion. We successfully collaborated with each other and we got to implement all the facilities and tools available to us. Additionally, we got a chance to learn from our expert mentors throughout the process.” 

Omar Mustafa, Raghad Al-Sulaiti, Safin Bayes, Reem Faraj and Almiqdad Elzein placed second for a graphene sheet concept to provide clean drinking water affordably and usable anywhere in the world. Third place went to Abdullah Al-Tamimi, Arvin Crisme, Syed Mustafa Husain and Abdulrahman El Moussa for a rolling tent prototype that prevents hail damage to aircraft.

Student engineering enrichment manager Dr. Yasser Al-Hamidi said, “Invent for the Planet encourages student innovation and creativity by engaging them in an intensive design experience and challenges them to tackle real-word problems. Figuring out the best solution to a global issue provides our students with a full understanding of the design process cycle and the necessary soft skills to successfully present your ideas, research and end products.”