Muscat: In partnership with BP in Oman and collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Kidsity held a closing ceremony marking the conclusion of the third National Robotics Olympics, held under the patronage of Dr Maya Said Al Azri, Director of Innovation and Scientific Olympics Department, Ministry of Education.

This social investment programme managed by BP is continuously benefiting communities with the contribution of our Block 61 partners. Block 61 is operated by bp in partnership with OQ, PTTEP, and Petronas.

The competition targeted school kids from the ages of 11 to 16 to design and programme a robot that would race and compete to win the title of ‘fastest robot’. A total of 500 students took part from 200 schools across 11 governorates. 22 teams with 44 students qualified for the final stage to compete for the first three winning placements, with cash prizes up to OMR750.

Shamsa Al-Rawahi, BP Oman Social Investment Manager, commented, “Encouraging innovation and engineering within youth is key to the development of their learning and skillsets. It also enhances their knowledge base in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) through fun and creative competitions that allow children to achieve their highest potential.”

The competition included qualification stages which were held for two weeks, qualifying two teams from each governorate to compete in the final stage of the competition. The matches required the designed and programmed robots to race across a 1.5m racing track for the fastest and most efficient robot.

Saif Al Manji, Co-Founder of Kidsity, further added, “These competitions and projects encourage students to think outside the box and invent different solutions for new challenges. One of our goals at Kidsity is to encourage delivering more of these types of projects in Oman to increase the capabilities of the new generation, steering them into the fields of science and innovation.”