Kadıköy Anatolian Imam Hatip High School became the champion in the "Doner Wing" category at TEKNOFEST

While preparing for the competition, the team worked intensively on drone design, production, software and flight processes.

The drone developed by the students was designed to carry two different payloads and drop them at designated points within the scope of the competition.

Following its first places in 2021 and 2022, KİTT-TURAN became the champion in the "Rotary Wing" category this year.

School Principal Nazmi Yıldırım told the AA correspondent that the successes of Kadıköy Anatolian Imam Hatip High School are not specific to the recent period, but are a result of the deep-rooted history of the school.

Stating that they support students to develop themselves in line with their interests and wishes, Yıldırım said, "We support our children both academically and in terms of club activities that will reveal their talents." he said.

Yıldırım noted that the students also undertake a mission in terms of raising the young people after them and that this is a very nice tradition, and said, "When someone looks from the outside, they ask 'How is it happening?' If they are curious, they can come here and observe it for themselves. This success is not an ordinary success. "It is truly a success achieved as a result of working with sincerity, dedication and faith." he said.

"This is not our pride, this is the pride of the Imam Hatip"

Describing the moment when the students who returned from the competition with the cup arrived at the school, Yıldırım said, "At the same time, there was a conference of Prof. Dr. Mahmut Faruk Akşit, who produces jet engines in Türkiye and is a graduate of this school. It was a special beauty for us that they entered there with the cup in their hands. We were really excited. Because this is not our pride, it is the pride of the Imam Hatip. From this perspective, I really thank them wholeheartedly." he said.

Deputy Principal and KİTT-TURAN Team Manager Mücahit Çevik said that they are the only school that won the first place in Türkiye in the same category 3 times in the competitions they participated in at TEKNOFEST.

Stating that the students carry out their studies entirely on their own, Çevik said, "There is a master-apprentice relationship at the school, and training and activities are carried out with this relationship. The elders in the upper class develop and educate the students in the lower class. As a result of this training, our students are successful." he said.

Çevik explained that the team that came first in TEKNOFEST has been working for about 8-9 months and continued as follows:

"Our students were completely at school during the summer break. They worked actively in the workshop. The day we went to the competition area and sleepless nights for a week, constantly making test flights in the field, it was an intense tempo. We see them working at 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock in the night. When they wake up for the morning prayer, we see them connecting some circuits with a soldering tool still in their hands. There is a very intense labor. We saw that they received degrees in return for this effort. We also know that our graduate students made a great contribution to this success. Our graduate students also "They are interested in the team. Students who leave our school and the team go to university and continue to care for our students, train and help. Success requires some of this."

Providing information about the technology department opened at the school this year, Çevik said, "The reason why we opened the technology department is partly due to these competitions and the success of the school in this field. There is a good educational work. We decided to name it and opened our technology department for the first time. Our technology department closed with 1 percent. We hope that our students will achieve better grades in the future." he said.

Vocational courses teacher Muhammed Ali Atalay, who took part with the students in the competition in Malatya, said that the success belongs to the students and that they were there to support them.

Atalay stated that students work until late hours and said, "'Sleep, don't tire yourself any more.' Even though we said, they did not listen to us and worked very hard. We arrived at the KYK dormitory around 2 am. It was after 5 in the morning when I went to their room thinking that they could not wake up for morning prayer. They were working around the drone with solder in hand. This made me very emotional. I think this is the source of success, believing and working with determination. We congratulate our students." he said.

Students told their success stories

12th grade student Ahmet Tuna Alegöz, one of the team captains of KİTT-TURAN, stated that the club was founded in 2018, and that they participated in the TEKNOFEST Inter-High School Unmanned Aerial Vehicles competition for the first time in 2021 and came first in the "Rotary Wing" category.

Stating that the club students participated in the same competition in 2022 and came first, Alegöz explained that he worked in areas such as avionics, software and mechanics in the team he joined in 2023.

Alegöz added that they came first in the "Rotary Wing" category in the Inter-High School Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Competition, in which they participated as a team.

Team member Mehmet Akif Ergişi, 11th grade student, said that the students participating in the club took different courses in the fields of electronics, software and design from former graduates at the beginning of the year, and those who successfully completed the training were admitted to the club.

Stating that they applied to TEKNOFEST after their work at the club, Ergişi noted that after completing the processes, they were eligible to participate in the competition, that they continued to develop their vehicles in the meantime, and that the competition week started after a 2-month period.

Stating that they were given 5-6 days of flight time during the competition week this year, Ergişi said, "There are two different missions that TEKNOFEST wants from us, we have 4 flight rights. We can try these two missions in any order we want. The competition week is both tiring and stressful. In addition, even if our vehicle is very good, we always say, 'What if it doesn't work, what if we don't get a result after all we worked so hard?' "It's like fear and stress." he said.

"Drone detects targets, drops payloads"

10th grade student Ramazan Salih Altınsoy said that in the development of the drone, first of all, its design was made, and then those interested in electronics arranged the subsystems such as batteries and motors.

Stating that after the drone was ready for flight, they first performed a test flight manually and then drove autonomously with the software, Altınsoy said, "After passing the software, we start testing the drone. The drone detects targets and drops the loads." he said.

Stating that they encountered some problems in this process, Altınsoy said, "A few days before the competition, you solder the motors of the drone to the ESC, the solders run out, you are going to give power, you plug in the power, it suddenly starts to catch fire, you can experience such shocks." he said.

Altınsoy stated that it was very exciting to win the cup and said, "When this is added to the other successes our club has had so far, it becomes a separate source of pride, and being a religious student is also a factor in this." he said.

11th grade student Ahmet Azhari stated that it was a completely different feeling to have achieved this success as an imam hatip student and said:

"These days, we take into account the events both in the world and especially in our geography, and we want to do useful things by taking into account the interests of our homeland, our nation, in short, our ummah. As young people with imam-hatip education, we try to carry out science and technology together with our faith. We want to have our salt in the soup by contributing to the work of our country, especially through unmanned vehicles and unmanned systems, with the method and understanding of 'If there is faith, there is opportunity'."