An-Najah Hosts NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge
Having obtained an official license from NASA, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and Google Developers Group at the Faculty of Engineering and IT at An-Najah in collaboration with Makerspace organized NASA’s International Space Apps Challenge. An-Najah was one of 11 areas in the Arab World to host the event, which is a two-day hackathon where teams of technologists, scientists, designers, artists, educators, entrepreneurs, developers and students across the globe collaborate and engage with publicly available data to design innovative solutions for global challenges.
Launched in 2012, the 48 hour competition participating teams choose different challenges and produce projects that offer solutions to the proposed problems.
An-Najah Teams among Finalists
70 students from different Palestinian universities participated in the challenge where two teams of An-Najah who presented entrepreneurial projects were able to make it to the final stage.
The first team included students Yahya Khwaireh from the Communication Engineering Department; Mohammad Shadeed from the Materials Engineering Department; Suleiman Khresheh from the Mechanical Engineering Department; Ghayth Khanfar from the Computer Engineering Department; Yazan Tayyah from the Electrical Engineering Department; Sarab Awad from the Chemistry Department; Manar Awad from the Physics Department and Yousef Abu Sa’deh from the Mechatronics Engineering Department. This team proposed a space suit designed according to NASA’s standards adopting technology in a brilliant way and adding new materials used for the first time in the manufacturing process.
The second team which consisted of students Malak Abu Draa’ and Abdullah Habib from the Computer Information Systems Department; Amena Abu Baker from the Mathematics Department; Shayma’ Awwad from the Physics Department and Mohammad Al-Salhi from the Computer Engineering Department proposed a project on a 3D game which simulates life on Mars. The game is based on surviving by taking advantage of the planet’s environmental conditions and temperature.
On this occasion, Dr. Samer Al-Arandi, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and IT commented: “The produced projects offered convenient solutions for the proposed problems by NASA. This embodies the high quality of education at the university.”
In his turn, Dr. Imad Natsheh who was the supervisor of the event added: “The beauty of the challenge resides in including students from various departments who were enthusiastic enough to work as a team and achieve this success.”
