Robotics students win medals

Islamabad : Robotics students of the Headstart School won medals in the P@SHA ICT Award ceremony attended by representatives of IT and technology companies and startups as well as experts.

Zohaib Arsalan of grade 9 and Muhammad Talha Adeel of grade 6 competed under the junior category with 900 teams from all over the country. Not only did both students win the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) Award but they will also be participating in the next phase of the competition for the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance Awards slated to take place later this year.

Saadia Habib, centre manager (robotics) at the Headstart School, Kuri Campus, said robotics might still be a relatively new discipline, but young students in the country had started to try their hands at the development of robotic applications, which could perform a variety of tasks and make people’s life easier.

She said Zohaib Arsalan engineered the ‘Digital Cloth Maker’, whereas Muhammad Talha Adeel invented the ‘Math Shooter’.

“The P@SHA ICT Awards in the junior category take into consideration the concept, its execution, functionality, reliability, compatibility, design, and presentation of the project, and our students did really well on all those fronts,” she said.

According to her, the P@SHA annual awards provide students with an international network and opportunities to interact and learn from IT industry leaders worldwide.

Saadia said Headstart was the first educational institution in the country’s history to host a robotics contest with FPV and Line of Sight drone modules and an air show.

“We, one of the pioneers in project-based learning in the country, have successfully managed a robotics programme since 2003, participated in the NERC, IEEE GIKI Olympiad, NASCON at FAST NUCES, FLL at SEECS NUST, RoboSprint at CASE and PSIFI at LUMS and other prestigious events, and won awards,” she said.