As part of the global Computer Science Education Week (celebrated in December 2024), students across The KAUST School were encouraged to engage with computer science through a range of activities, and were also able to showcase their projects and experiences in computer science. The theme for CSEd Week 2024 was “Looking Back, Leaping Forward”, and a chance to reflect on the computational thinking, creativity, and problem-solving that come together to shape the future.
With many willing volunteers (students, postdocs and researchers) from the RISC Lab at the KAUST University, our students in Early Years explored different robots – Cubelets, Hexbugs, and Bee-Bots, as well as making and exploring the use of computers in our world today. There was also a lot of excitement as Spot the Robotic Dog dropped in to say hi (or wag his tail).
In Elementary, students were able to choose from a range of Computer Science activities, tasks and games each day, explored robotics with the KAUST RISC Lab (including Spot the Robotic Dog), and took part in an Art and AI workshop, offered by Medvation – a KAUST start-up and run by a current KAUST AI student.
In the Middle School and High School, students were able to get involved in coding through challenges and the Hour of Code, and were invited to a number of presentations delivered by KAUST faculty and researchers, including Professor David Pugh speaking about the use of LLMs, Asad Riaz presenting on the ‘Cyber Battleground’, and Mark Dudley sharing how drones are being used at KAUST. Medvation delivered an AI workshop for older students, and they had the opportunity to explore Mars with a virtual reality experience offered by Maaverse – a Saudi space start-up.
The two weeks of activities concluded with the TKS Computer Science Expo, with students from all the schools showcasing their CS projects.
Photos from CSEdWeek 2024 can be found here.