CHS robotics alum's first bridge mentors students

A Clifton High School alumna studying engineering has built her first bridge by serving as a mentor connecting with aspiring robotics students.

Aulla Hamdeh, captain of the 2013 CHS robotics team and now a junior at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, didn’t hesitate to get involved when invited by a former teacher.

CHS chemistry teacher and robotics coach Moniquie Dituri said she knew just who to call when she needed volunteers for a robotics tournament involving more than 400 middle schoolers.

“Aulla spearheaded the effort and doubled my staff by bringing me 30 volunteers to help run the tournament,” said Dituri, who organized the event held at the high school earlier this month. “It was not just a tremendous help. We would not have been able to do it without them.”

The 20-year-old is president of NJIT’s American Society of Mechanical Engineers chapter and serves as an undergraduate research assistant.

“Without my robotics experience I wouldn’t have known I wanted to become an engineer,” Hamdeh said. “When I heard they were again holding the event for the middle schools, I remembered in the past how difficult it was to find volunteers who actually cared.”

Hamdeh sent a last-minute letter to the NJIT student body asking for volunteers, which resulted in scores of her classmates committing to the event and its 7 a.m. start time.

Hamdeh said every last one of the college volunteers stayed until the event ended and, in the process, “enjoyed every minute of it.”

“In order for the Clifton robotics program to grow, we need alumni like Aulla to come back and volunteer and donate their time,” Dituri said.

James Hobin, a City robotics mentor and professional engineer, called Hamdeh a role model for female students interested in the field.

“Engineering is a male-dominated career and she stood out as a female in a man’s field,” Hobin said. “She pursued it, got her hands dirty and succeeded.”

Hobin said a cluster of up-and-coming female robotics team members are concentrating on the mechanical subset of engineering, which he traced back to Hamdeh’s "inspiring" presence.

Hamdeh agreed the gender gap was and continues to be the most difficult aspect of her robotics, and now, engineering studies.

In her NJIT classes she is either the only female student or one of “a few,” she said. The Cliftonite has yet to take a class taught by a female professor, a fact she calls “baffling.”

“You can kind of doubt yourself sometimes,” Hamdeh said. “But, I just kind of put that to the side because it doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or a girl. I do think just the fact that upcoming Clifton girls know that there was a captain who was a girl and comes to visit, makes them feel more at ease.”

The mentoring relationship is a two-way street, however.

During times when Hamdeh loses excitement for mechanical engineering she said she feeds off the energy of the younger City robotics students. “When you see that enthusiasm from all the younger kids it makes me remember how I was and that boosts me,” she said.

Hoping to ultimately delve into the manufacturing area of mechanical engineering, Hamdeh said her favorite pastime is “making something” and learning how things are built.

The team’s leaders say robotics project-based learning gives participants a real taste of the engineering industry. This month’s tournament at Clifton High marked the 11th year that the Clifton robotics club oversaw the event, which grows every year, according to officials.

“When I went to CHS in the 1970s, there was no such thing as robotics,” Hobin laughed. “That was fantasy from outer space. Now, there are fifth graders programming robots, installing sensors, decoders and all this stuff that was mind-boggling 20 years ago.”

The tournament’s highest honor, the Champions Award, went to to the COLABOTS community team from Flanders and the CoBots squad from Montclair Cooperative School.

Email: gicas@northjersey.com