DSP Jahrbuch 2017/ DSP Yearbook 2017

ROBOTICS
South African Teams Excel at Virtual Get Excited
About Robotics (GEAR) Competition
By Tanja Karp, Patricia Gouws, and Kabelo Pheeha
The Virtual GEAR competition, an international LEGO MINSTORMS
EV3 robotics challenge offered to learners aged 14 years old or
younger, was held February through May 2017. Seventeen teams
from South Africa, Germany, and the United States of America
participated, competing in two different categories: First Timers were
reserved to teams with no prior robotics competition experience and
Global Competitors had to form international alliances during the
competition. All robot designs and compe ti tions were performed
locally and results were uploaded to Cloud Storage.
In February, teams were given instructions to design their game
field for this year’s challenge “Flippin’ Out”, where the robot had
to operate in a fast food restaurant and had to deliver orders of
hamburgers, chips, drinks, shakes, and ice cream to customers’ trays.
They were also asked to create and upload a team introduction
video describing where they live, how robotics is implemented at
their school/club, and why they are participating in the competition.
The videos were shared with all participants and the challenge rules
were distributed. Four weeks into the competition, teams uploaded
a trial run video, showcasing which tasks their robot could already
complete. They received feedback on their performance and had
another month to improve their design. By end of April, teams
up loaded an engineering design video in which they explained
their robot design, team responsibilities, and their game strategy.
The competition was finally held during the first week in May and
the organizers joined the teams via video-conferencing. The final
scoring was determined from the scores at trial run and game day
and the quality of their engineering design video.
Teams from South Africa took places 1-4 in the First Timers
category and were part of each alliance in the Global Competitors
category.
Lego-Robots: First Lego League Competition 2017
In the 2017 FIRST® LEGO®League Challenge, students age 9 to 16 from
80 countries made a splash with HYDRO DYNAMICS. Learners learned
all about water – how we find, transport, use, or dispose of it.
What might become possible when we understand what happens
to our water?
On Saturday, 25 November 2017 the DSP Lego-Robotics Team
“S.E.A” participated in the First Lego League Gauteng Central
Tournament at the Theo van Wijk Hall at UNISA.
Team members:
1. Mary-Anne Katerere Project Part+ Core values
2. Eyakhe Mkhabela Project Part+ Core values
3. Jaden Moodly Project Part+ Core values
4. Zong-Han Tu Project Part+ Core values
5. Ofentse Seotloadi Project Part+ Core values
6. Timo Johannsen Technical Support
7. Jannis Spath Technical Part
8. Arieh Thill Technical Part
9. Theo Feucht Technical Part
First Timers 2nd Place: German International School, Pretoria, Gauteng
Virtual GEAR was organized jointly by Tanja Karp, an Associate
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Texas Tech
University who is currently a U.S. Fulbright Scholar at UNISA’s
Inspired towards Science Engineering and Technology (I-SET) community
engagement project, Patricia Gouws and Kabelo Pheeha
from I-SET. Training was offered to Science Centre staff in September
2016 through SAASTA and the program was presented at the 2016
SAASTEC Conference in Richards Bay in November. Virtual GEAR is
part of the Association of Science Technology Engineering Mathematics
and Innovation (ASTEMI). Participation is for free and the
next Virtual GEAR competition will launch in January 2018, hopefully
with many new robotics teams from Science Centres, schools,
and after school clubs.
Hydro Dynamics: Robot Game
102 DSP Jahrbuch 2017 – Neigungsfächer & Profilierung