{"id":241016,"date":"2022-10-25T11:38:31","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T09:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/in-it-to-win-it-joe-slovo-learners-head-to-world-robotics-championship\/"},"modified":"2022-10-25T11:38:31","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T09:38:31","slug":"in-it-to-win-it-joe-slovo-learners-head-to-world-robotics-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/in-it-to-win-it-joe-slovo-learners-head-to-world-robotics-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"In it to win it \u2013 Joe Slovo learners head to world robotics championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/Unknown%20photographer\/0.jpeg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/in-it-to-win-it-joe-slovo-learners-head-to-world-robotics-championship.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Dickson Madzivadondo, Pracahzel Kimbini and Elihle Zenzile with the robot they created. Photo: Supplied.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A team from Sinenjongo High School in Joe Slovo Park in Cape Town will represent South Africa at the World Robot Olympiad in Germany.<\/li>\n<li>The team designed and programmed a Lego robot which can sense, pick up and throw a ball.<\/li>\n<li>The Grade 11 learners in the \u201cSinenjongo rockwell boyz\u201d team has already won the national robotics competition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A robot designed, created, and programmed by a group of grade 11 learners at Sinenjongo High in Joe Slovo Park, Milnerton, will be entered into the 2022 World Robot Olympiad in the RoboSports category.<\/p>\n<p>The robot, \u201cRobo47\u201d, has already won the national school robotics competition.<\/p>\n<p>Now the \u201cSinenjongo rockwell boyz\u201d as the team is called, will represent South Africa at the international competition in Dortmund in Germany from 15 to 17 November.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/in-it-to-win-it-joe-slovo-learners-head-to-world-robotics-championship.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>\u201cRobo47\u201d is called after the AK47 assault rifle, \u201ccause we are always going to make a killing especially when shooting balls against our opponent robot\u201d, said 17-year-old team member Elihle Zenzile, who commutes to school from Witsand township near Atlantis.<\/p>\n<p>Busisiwe Maqubela, executive director of the Association for Educational Transformation (ASSET), which supported the project, said the Sinenjongo High team built their robot using Lego.<\/p>\n<p>Maqubela said the robot had to be programmed to sense a ball, pick it up and throw it to the opponent\u2019s side. \u201cBelieve me, that is no mean feat,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The rules are that the team with the most balls on the opponent\u2019s side at the end of two minutes, wins the round.<\/p>\n<p>She said the Sinenjongo High learners competed at the provincial competition held in Ottery on 13 August, winning the World Robot Olympiad Western Cape Regional competition. They were then invited to the national competition held in Randburg, to represent the Western Cape on 17 September, where they beat teams from all the provinces present and were invited to Germany.<\/p>\n<p>She said robotics was one of the activities ASSET had identified as necessary for employment.<\/p>\n<p>Maqubela said that learners are taught how to build robots from scratch. \u201cThey have to be committed and work hard both at the club and at school as their performance is monitored.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Team member Pracahzel Kimbini, 18, says ASSET introduced them to robotics at the school.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really got to learn about new experiences. I didn\u2019t understand how programming worked,\u201d said Kimbini. \u201cIn the 21st century most things are robotic stuff \u2026 robotics gives a better chance of getting job opportunities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Zenzile said he was excited to travel to Germany, as it would be his first trip overseas.<\/p>\n<p>Team member Dickson Madzivadondo said robotics involved problem solving. He said he was continually learning new things.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo represent the country and our school, I feel very excited, almost can\u2019t believe it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The team coach Eric Hodana, who also teaches Robotics at Parklands College, said his school team lost to the Sinenjongo High team. He said the winning Sinenjongo robot had now been upgraded \u201cto a better one\u201d which will represent the country in Germany.<\/p>\n<p>Sinenjongo High principal Khuselwa Nopote praised her learners for their hard work, dedication, and drive. \u201cThey have proven to us that nothing can stand in the way of a black child with a dream. Them going to Germany and lifting our flag high brings us pure joy because we trust that they will come home victorious with or without the trophy. We as a school are very proud of the boys\u2019 achievements,\u201d said Nopote.<\/p>\n<p>She said that her school advocates for excellent results in whatever they do. \u201cOur learners know that they should excel in all aspects of their lives be it academic, extracurricular or sports,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Maqubela said ASSET was \u201chonoured\u201d to be able to have a positive impact on the learners\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe hope they will go on and become a success in life and come back and plough back into their communities for those that come behind them. And I hope they are an inspiration to the rest of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/in-it-to-win-it-joe-slovo-learners-head-to-world-robotics-championship.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dickson Madzivadondo, Pracahzel Kimbini and Elihle Zenzile with the robot they created. Photo: Supplied. A team from Sinenjongo High School in Joe Slovo Park in Cape Town will represent South Africa at the World Robot Olympiad in Germany. The team designed and programmed a Lego robot which can sense, pick up and throw a ball. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-241016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/in-it-to-win-it-joe-slovo-learners-head-to-world-robotics-championship.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}