By Matṧeliso Phulane
Members of the Soofia International School robotic club have applauded the institution for bringing their desire closer to home. This after the school launched its first robotic lab recently during the Soofia Science Festival.
School principal, Vijayakumar Bhaskaran last year promised to set up a robotic lab after the school emerged victorious at the Robotics Boot camp sponsored by Vodacom Lesotho Foundation. The camp seeks to kindle interest in Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
Participants the recent festival showcased an array of gadgets, innovations and devices they had designed.
In an interview with theReporter, one of the members of the robotic club, Kethabile Tṧepe, said she joined last year after the bootcamp.
“The club is mainly about robotics and STEM, so I want to pursue engineering in future. I was actually interested in how these robots can impact the field of engineering because I have learned that robotics forms part of almost every career right now.
“Therefore, in future I think it will be the next big thing and we will have to be involved just like right now. Everybody is using a cellphone and we didn’t use them back then; so I think robotics will take over at some point in time; they will be implemented in most of the jobs.
“We have seen in restaurants robots taking care of waitressing jobs, in the medical fields where there are surgical robots. I think it’s important that one considers robotics in their career choices,” she said.
Tṧepe indicated she is privileged that the lab has been brought closer because that is going give them exposure and a lot of practical work.
“The lab is going to give us a lot of practical work, and we will have components to work with, as well as equipment. As a result, we will have better experience from learning robotics. This will make it much easier to remember things when writing computer science papers, as we will remember from the practice we acquired while programming robots.
“It is a nice fun field; one gets a lot of exposure and gets to meet a lot of experienced people,” she added.
Bhaskaran told this publication in an interview the aim of the robotic lab is to ensure that the students are able to acquire skills required to face the world.
“I promised to bring the lab closer to home. Since then, I have been on it, talking to people about it without even knowing how much it would cost.
“We are giving the students skills for them to survive in this world of technology; we are doing this to prepare them for the future.
“Six technology and computer teachers have been trained to teach robotics to these children at different levels by the company that we are partnering with called Resolute Company from South Africa,” Bhaskaran said.
The students who are just stepping into the world of robots will gain a better understanding of pattern recognition, sequencing, and practical problem-solving. With the use of logical thinking in many of the activities, they will be able to take what they experience in their real-life world and apply it to robotics and coding.
“I urge that as a nation, we should not remain behind. It’s true that we are a small nation but being small can also be an advantage in that we can reach everybody everywhere.
“We can be a small nation but have big mindset and big ambitions; therefore, it is important to update ourselves. Don’t resist change, embrace technology and make technical devices useful.
“Allow the children to also benefit from it, resisting it won’t help us to grow and we will be left behind as a nation if we try to resist the technology or AI (artificial intelligence) robotics because that is where the world is. We need to prepare our children to face the future because it is for them not us,” he added.
