UAE Innovation Challenge concludes with awards ceremony

After the countless hours and untold pressure to complete airworthy aircraft the UAE Innovation Challenge Abu Dhabi 2014 concluded in grand style amid cheering and warm support for all the teams.

The 2014 UAE Innovation Challenge, organised with Northrop Grumman Corporation and ADASI, saw 96 engineers with 14 student teams from the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) put their engineering and design skills to the test.

Award winners are:

    First Place:                                        Fujairah Dynamic (Fujairah Colleges)
    Second Place:                                    Emirates Robotics (Dubai Men’s College)
    Third Place:                                       Supero (Al Ain Men’s College)
    Best Team Sportsmanship:            Flight 19 (Al Ain Women’s College)
    Longest Endurance Award:            Emirates Robotics (Dubai Men’s College)
    Best Presentation:                            Falcontrons (Sharjah Women’s College)
    Mentors’ Choice (Dedication):        Fire Flyers (Abu Dhabi Women’s College)
    Most creative design:                       KBZ (Khalifa Bin Zayed Air College)
    Best Spot Landing:                           Fujairah Dynamic (Fujairah Colleges)



The jubilant winners, Fujairah Dynamic (above) comprised of four male and two female students, can now look forward to an all expenses trip to California, courtesy of Northrop Grumman, where they will tour Northrop Grumman facilities on the West Coast as well as educational institutions with specialties in robotics and other areas of interest.

Second-placed winners, and past Innovation Challenge winners, Emirates Robotics from Dubai Men’s College, will receive an overseas trip, sponsored by Abu Dhabi Systems Investments Co (ADASI).

The competition’s overall winners were finding it hard to accept they had won the hotly-contested event. “This is just so amazing. It’s a fantastic result and we are so excited. This is our first prize in this competition and we won first prize,” Team member Mariam Al Meraikhi said.

“We had no idea we were going to win. It was due to our last flight on the second day when our plane flew really well and we didn’t lose any points,” fellow team member Mariam Al Hammadi said.

Another beaming Fujairah Dynamic member, Abdulla Rashid Abdallah, who has never been to the USA, said: “I can’t believe it, that we are going to the US. It is like being in a dream.”

“This is the first time for all of us as a team, but we are from the same class in electronic engineering and we worked well together as a team,” Abdalla said.

“We did not know anything about this competition at the start but we asked questions and got good support from the mentors. We worked very hard from 1pm to 8am the next day five days a week, while still doing our studies. If we wanted to do a good flight we had to work hard for it,” he added.

Special guest H.E. Michael H. Corbin (above), Ambassador of the United States of America to the UAE, attending his third Innovation Challenge, described the event as “bringing together the elements of education, technology and cooperation towards the goal of the UAE to be the global aviation hub of this huge region.”

“This event underlines our support for the partnerships between education, technology, US corporations and Emirati corporations working together for the future of this country. We are underlying the future of the global crossroads with this important event,” the Ambassador added.

Mary Petryszyn, VP, International of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems, said it “takes a village to make this competition successful and to make it the learning by doing experience that it is.”

"We are very pleased to partner once again with Northrop Grumman and ADASI on the UAE Innovation Challenge," said Dr Tayeb Kamali, vice chancellor of HCT. "Each year of the competition has brought new and exciting challenges for our engineering, avionics and aeronautical students. This event, which gets bigger every year, is a wonderful example of HCT's philosophy of 'learning by doing.'"

The teams were:

• Abu Dhabi Women's College: Fire Fly
• Abu Dhabi Men's College: Skydive and Eagle Eye
• Al Ain Women's College: Flight 19
• Al Ain Men's College: Supero
• Dubai Men's College: Aviators and Emirates Robotics
• Fujairah Womens/Men's College: Fujairah Dynamic
• Khalifa Bin Zayed Air College: KBZ
• Ras Al Khaimah Men's College: Phantom
• Ruwais Women's College: Pathfinder
• Ruwais Men's College: Diamond 42
• Sharjah Women's College: Falcontrons
• Sharjah Men's College: Falcons

"The UAE Innovation Challenge is an example of how Northrop Grumman continues to cultivate widespread literacy in science, technology, engineering and mathematics," said Doug Raaberg, chief executive UAE, Northrop Grumman. "This initiative embraces the spirit of partnership, with Northrop Grumman, HCT and ADASI working together and demonstrating how collaboration between student and mentor can bring about great results."

The teams of students have participated in four workshops conducted over six months using a Northrop Grumman syllabus taught by engineer mentors from Northrop Grumman to design, fabricate, programme and fly unmanned aircraft. The students presented their designs to a panel of senior engineers from Northrop Grumman, ADASI and HCT before taking part in the flying competition.

During the flying competition, which took place at Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, each team's aircraft had to meet specific criteria related to speed, endurance and weight.

Douglas Raaberg said the Innovation Challenge was an important part of Northrop Grumman’s aim is to improve education in the STEM areas at all educational levels – domestically and internationally – with a goal to deepen student appreciation and excitement for STEM programmes and careers, especially among females.

“Northrop Grumman is pleased to be part of an initiative like the UAE Innovation Challenge where the importance of teamwork, along with scientific knowledge, is put to the test in real-world applications,” Mr Raaberg said.

“Our hope for the future is that the UAE Innovation Challenge will continue to expand and further encourage tomorrow’s generation of Emirati scientists and engineers to develop similar ground breaking technologies for the future. Every student who participated in the UAE Innovation Challenge is a winner in my book,” he added.



Sultan Karmostaji, Director of the HCT Abu Dhabi Colleges, said the competition was a “golden opportunity for our students to learn new skills through learning by doing”. “The winning is in the participation, not just the result. All the students are very excited about competing and this has opened up opportunities for women to study STEM courses. They want to study these courses as they see a good future in them,” Mr Karmostaji said.

“This Challenge has made STEM subjects hands-on, fun and interesting – a lot of students want to get involved. This initiative gives students a practical approach to their maths, sciences and other subjects,” he added.

Fahad Al Absi of the Abu Dhabi Systems Investments Co (ADASI) added that the Innovation Challenge showed to young Emiratis that anything is achievable through strong partnerships. “This is all about working with Northrop Grumman and HCT to create some great opportunities for students. At first there is small progress leading to a big goal,” Mr Al Absi said.

“We are very keen to see the knowledge transfer in our society through efforts such as this Challenge. It is allowing people to dream about what you can do, create, innovate. It gives students the opening to companies and careers in the fields of STEM,” he added.

Throughout the four competitions held to date, a total of 308 Emirati students have competed, starting with 61 in 2011 and growing to this year’s cohort of 96 students. The 2014 competition has been the setting for new beginnings and experiences for the teams, with many competing for the first time and coming to terms with complex engineering and aeronautical principles.

For the HCT Ruwais Colleges it is their first foray into the Innovation Challenge, with a team each from the Men’s College (Diamond 42) and the Women’s College (Pathfinders). “We are very excited about it and we’ve got a lot of information about flying and aircraft. As mechanical and electrical engineering students we are new this competition. In the past the best plane I built was with paper, but now my plane is real,” Ruwais Men’s College student Fares Al Hamadi said.

The Ruwais Men’s team’s supervisor Dr Hasan Fawad said his students, who mostly study part-time while working in the Western Region’s oil and gas industry, were at ease with the practical nature of the Innovation Challenge.

“They are used to working with their hands, but this is something very new for them and they love it. They have never done anything like this (build a plane) before so they find it a great challenge,” he said.

The Ruwais Women’s College Pathfinder team also found the competition to be a novel experience. “It is very exciting and we are learning a lot of new things, although it is quite hard,” one team member said.

“We crashed our plane four times in practices, but know we have to keep going to make it better,” another Pathfinders member said.

Another newcomer to the scene, the KBZ team from the Khalifa Bin Zayed Air College, was delighted with its first flying effort of 8 minutes and 44 seconds. Even an unplanned off-course landing, which incurred penalties, could not dampen their enthusiasm. “We are all studying aviation sciences at the College. It is the first time for us and it’s all very new, but it’s very exciting to be flying,” one student said.

“We want to be engineers of unmanned aircraft in the future and our first flight was good but we will continue trying to get better,” another student said.

Two-time Challenge winners Team Robotics, from Dubai Men’s College (DMC), were sporting a completely new membership from their previous incarnations.  The seven-member team was created from students at the DMC Robotics Club who all study different majors; from Business, IT, Mechatronics, and Mechanical and Electrical Engineering.

Despite a new-look line up and bringing differing skills to the competition, Team Robotics set themselves up as the ones to beat in the flying competition, registering an initial flight of 13 minutes.

Their story is one of perseverance, considering that after seven of their test aircraft crashed they were ready to give up on the competition. “We were about to give up last week when our final plane crashed in testing, but we kept going. After all the weeks and hours I have worked on this I didn’t just want to give up after that crash. I think that is what we all felt,” team member Abdulrahman Al Sharif said.

For the new Team Robotics members, their participation in the Innovation Challenge has been an eye-opener. “I never knew I could build an airplane and work for hours and hours and face losing it all. I never knew I could go this far. I hope we win,” member Salem Al Marri said

RAK Phantoms team member Saif Al Belooshi, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student, said the Challenge was a “great experience”. “This has been very new for us as we are doing aviation related work, but we’ve worked very well together as a team. We have used different designs and dealt with broken engines so we have had to be calm,” he said.

“It is really impressive to see the growth of this project since the first one in 2011. Over the four years we have seen 308 Emirati students participate in it. That’s a growth of 50% over the last three years,” she said.

“The Innovation Challenge emphasises STEM education, which brings capability and capacity across various sectors in the UAE. It really looks at the importance of team work and the transfer of engineering knowledge into real world experience,” Ms Petryszyn said.



Ms Petryszyn (above) added that Northrop Grumman was “thrilled” to be able to work together with the parties involved and looked forward to an exciting Innovation Challenge in 2015.

Douglas Raaberg, Northrop Grumman CEO in the UAE said the competition emphasised the true nature of team work. “Everybody is part of the whole one team. We are very excited about this participation by the students,” he said.

“The Middle East will become a very important region for STEM and through this competition we will see students become mentors, mentors become leaders, and leaders become corporate heads.”



Above: The 4th UAE Innovation Challenge ran from April 22-24, 2014, and hosted 96 engineering and aviation students from the Higher Colleges of Technology and the Khalifa Bin Zayed Air College, who made up the 14 teams. It encouraged students to apply their mathematical and scientific knowledge to a real world engineering project.  The male and female teams learnt the complete engineering process of designing, building and testing/flying unmanned aircraft, as well as developing teamwork and presentation skills. They also gain general and aeronautical engineering knowledge and an appreciation of unmanned aerial vehicles.