This year, for the first time, Philip Ginster and Stevens Ndawonde, both Grade 9 pupils at the school, entered the World Robot Olympiad (WRO) after a Lego robot was donated by Hands on Technology, a German-based NGO committed to inspiring young people with regards to science and technology, to the pupils. Derek Albert of Robotic Handling Systems in Cape Town also generously donated a robot to the school.
The WRO is an international robotics competition comprising 50 member countries with more than 20 000 teams competing to be selected for the WRO international final hosted in a different country each November. Each team of two to three pupils, assisted by a coach, develops creative and problem-solving skills through robotic challenges, the tools consisting mainly of Lego components.
Philip and Stevens competed in the Open category in the junior high age group at the regional competition, held at Tshwane University of Technology. The theme for this year’s competition was Robot Explorers. The two designed a robot that can search for and sample extremophile, an organism that thrives in physically or geo-chemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most life on earth.
As part of the competition, they also had to give a presentation and make a video explaining how their robot worked. Having excelled at regional level, they went through to the national competition where they came out tops in their age group. They were selected to represent South Africa at the international WRO event that will take place from 6 to 8 November in Doha, Qatar.
The school is delighted and thanked Anne Ginster, Philip’s mother, for her commitment and enthusiasm as the team’s coach.
