Three girls from Redhill School in Morningside are blazing a trail for girls in coding and robotics. Tania Bantam and Kezzia Till (both currently in Grade 9), along with Kezzia’s younger sister Camryn (Grade 6) are proving that girls are as good as the boys when it comes to coding, engineering, and robotics. In so doing, they are inspiring other girls to try their hand at robotics.
Tania, Kezzia and Camryn represented South Africa in New Delhi at the World Robotics Olympiad (WRO) 2016 and were selected to represent South Africa again this year in Costa Rica.
“This is a fantastic achievement, considering that this year is only their second year in the case of Kezzia and Tanya, and the first in the case of Camryn, but it is also a testament to their hard work and fortitude,” said Linda Hamman, communications manager for Redhill School.
Redhill started the robotics programme last year and in a short time, it has become a very popular after-school activity. The school has also begun to integrate robotics into their normal lessons. Redhill has achieved unprecedented success by having a huge number of teams making it into the national WRO competition, as well as having three teams represent their country at international tournaments.
The school plans to expand the robotics programme significantly in the next few years to cater for the ever-growing interest, according to the director of educational technology and robotics, Sean Hampton-Cole.
“Robotics is not simply about children learning to build and code a robot. Most of what we do is challenge-based and requires students to work collaboratively in order to figure out a creative solution to a series of problems independently.
“This requires logical, sequential thinking, but also asks students to analyse a problem (and their solutions) critically, as well to develop the determination to puzzle things out for themselves. It helps that it’s also a great deal of fun!”
Tania, Kezzia and Camryn have worked incredibly hard since March this year, and continue to labour long hours to prepare their robot for the International WRO Tournament in November.
“Talk is that they already have a solution to this year’s WRO challenge which could earn them full points if all goes well. We wish them the best of luck!” concluded Hamman.
