Ruby Abdeldayim, winner in the primary school category, with her app, Listy!, which helps shoppers create and curate shopping lists so they don’t forget to buy anything at the store
Residents and citizens of Qatar may soon have a variety of useful new apps and fun games to choose from, thanks to students in grades 7-12 who designed the apps as part of an online STEM program offered by Texas A&M University at Qatar, a Qatar Foundation partner university.
IDEA: Innovate, Design and Engineer an App was developed and taught by Dr. Mohamed Gharib, a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) expert at Texas A&M at Qatar, to teach students the fundamentals of programming and mobile app development in the comfort — and safety — of their own homes.
IDEA participants learned the basics of coding using Java blocks, algorithms and refining their ideas for a working mobile-phone app through weekly online training sessions. They then designed and developed their own apps and presented their ideas to a panel of experts.
“Teaching programming within one of the most used tools in daily life, mobile apps, motivated the students to rapidly achieve the target knowledge and the skills,” Gharib said.
Winning apps in the high school category included Zeyad Sorour’s sixChat, a user-friendly text app for anyone trying to do a social detox to interact only with their family and close friends. Arham Khalid’s App Distrikt has eight applications within it, including information about social services and a diet planner feature that selects food according for each user depending on the user’s health reports. Al-Mayasa Al-Obaidli’s Home Workout app won third place, with Dear Diary by Haya Al-Kubaisi and Amira Ibrahim’s Beauty Tips app placing fourth and fifth.
In the middle school category, Yousef Altoum’s Orchestralmental app teaches users how to play musical instruments, including piano, guitar, violin and drums. Each instrument has the settings which the users can choose accordingly and play. Shordon, by Abaan Shanid, allows the users to evaluate themselves on a variety of factors, such as intelligence, health and learning style. Brain STEM by Ralph Hermogenes aims to create interest in programming by guiding the user through the process of coding simple algorithms. Fourth and fifth-place winners Amr Sorour and Shishir Vasisht both designed multi-app applications.
In the primary school category, Ruby Abdeldayim won first place with her app, Listy!, which helps shoppers create and curate shopping lists so they don’t forget to buy anything at the store. Abdeldayim said “This experience has helped me see things in a new way, it has changed my perspective altogether. Before starting the course, whenever I came across an interesting app, game, website, etc., I was like, ‘Hey, this is so cool!’ Now, I ask, ‘How can I program something like this?’ Computer programming is a necessary skill in life that I am very fortunate to have been given a head-start on. I highly recommend this course to anyone because it teaches the necessary skills required to complete a large variety of tasks at a young age.”
Second place went to Erin Kim from Doha College for the all-in-one app, Multi Apps, which has calendar, timer and reminders features, as well as information on coronavirus and a few games. Other honorees in the primary school category were Imaan Ahmed’s MyOffice app, Fuad Daloul’s Circles Game and Yatin Amand’s One Stop Access app.
Participant Aarav Bedi thanked the STEM team for providing a great opportunity for learning in a fun and innovative way. “Your projects were the best way to make someone try out the new tricks and codes they have learned. This is something I will never forget.”
Texas A&M at Qatar dean Dr. César Octavio Malavé said that IDEA was the first of its kind for students in Qatar to enhance their school learning by participating in an online extracurricular programming challenge.
