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Spring Bots Competition under way
The Springbots South Africa Regional Robotics competition was in full swing at Lawson Brown High School in Gqeberha today. The competition comprised 20 teams made up of 100 learners.
The teams participated in different competitions with their robots, including a drawing competition and other practical tasks. The competition has seen steady growth in the number of learners participating since its inception in 2018.
A fun-filled digital literacy day. For some learners, this was not just a battlefield but a learning platform. Teamwork is also a crucial component of the discipline.
“I am very proud of the decision that I made to join robotics because if I didn’t join, I would not have realised how much fun it is and how important it is, not just what I do but how I do it and with the people I do it,” says a learner.
“With the help of everyone on our team, we got the manuals to build. We all had no idea about robotics, but we all came together and put our brains to make the code and made the robot possible,” says another learner.
One of the youngest learners in the competition is 11-year-old Ashlyn Adams. She recently came on board.
“What inspired me to join coding and robotics was wanting to try something new, and I found it very interesting. So I thought, let me try it out, as it was the first time hearing about it.”
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The interest in robotics is also growing.
“The interest in coding and robotics is tremendous, so what we need to do as organisers of such events is to seek sponsors so that we can get more teams to participate in competitions of this magnitude. We are at a point where we can’t estimate how many learners we have that are ready to come and participate; there are learners left behind because of a lack of resources,” says EC Springbots champion Kenneth Print.
Springbots SA plans on opening learning hubs in all provinces across the country to equip learners with digital literacy.
“We would actually like to create SpringBots hubs where young people can go and do their homework to learn basic computer skills and STEM education. We really believe that talent is dispersed equally, but opportunities are not. So by creating these Springbots hubs, we really believe that we can touch more lives,” says Springbots SA director Roxanne Reddy.
Two teams from today’s competition will participate in the national competition next month.
