Eldos robotics club maintaining static balance

The Eldorado Park Robotics Club is read to compete with other clubs in the country and beyond.

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The club has been for the past two years at the forefront of teaching children in the community about coding and building robots.

Despite challenges with finances and lack of support, the club has been able to empower young people with a unique set of skills and inspired others from neighbouring communities.

When Urban News visited the club on Freedom Day, youngsters showcased their latest creation, an EV3 Enterprise. It is a robot built using LEGO pieces combined with motors, sensors and with a use of a tablet and special coding software, they are able to programme the robot and give t instructions.

Their EV3 has a shovel in front and through programming and coding, it is able to pull, lift and drop off.

“It now takes us about five minutes to put all the pieces together and build this robot,” says one of the young club members.

“Through programmes in this club, we have learned to put the pieces together to form a robot and then we use a tablet to programme it so we can tell it what to do.”

Building robots is not only a fun way of learning for these youngsters but it teaches them more other skills such as team work, problem solving and paying attention to details.

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The Eldos robotics club goes beyond teaching kids about building robots and coding, it also empowers the youth from the community who are trained to become coaches.

They have to first undergo intensive training with the University of South Africa’s (Unisa) Science Hub at the Florida campus in Roodepoort before they can go back to Eldos and become coaches.

Anastacia Moon is one of the coaches who has completed training with Unisa and she is the coach for the Discover foundation. This is the foundation phase where she empowers children with all the basic skills they need to progress to the next phase.

Amani Williams takes over in the intermediate or the Explore phase where she teaches them about coding. The Explore team is now ready to compete with other teams in the Johannesburg south region.

This will be another great opportunity to showcase what the club has been up to and what Eldos has to offer in the field of robotics.

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Taymiyyah Williams, a coach for the advanced team said they are also ready to show South Africa what they have been teaching children in the community of Eldos.

“Each year we are given a different theme and different missions to complete and we get points for each mission successfully completed,” explained Taymiyyah. “There is a network of clubs that compete against each other in the regions before going national. We are looking for sponsors to help us get to compete in the nationals.”

The club did make it to the nationals last year but they were not able to go because of financial constraints.

Besides making it to the nationals, one of the club members, Kiante Oliphant excelled in the regionals and was recommended to go study in Texas in the United States.

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“It is a good opportunity, not just for me but for the club and the community.

“I want to go but I need to finish school first because I’m still doing my Grade 11,” said Oliphant.

Members of the Eldorado Park Robotics Club have over the past two years proven that they have the zeal to learn and impart knowledge about robotics in their community, the only thing they need is the support.

Support from the government and private sector can help them take the programme to the next level and reach more children in other communities.

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