In today's technology-driven world, it has become important, now more than ever, to expose children to computational thinking as early as possible, so they can keep track of the ever-changing trends dominating the world.
The latest in robotics and artificial intelligence is exploring how we can fully deploy technologies that have been around for years and adapt them to our everyday routines.
At robotics center in Lagos, the younger generation are learning to increase their ability to be creative, innovative thinkers, and productive members of the society.
They identified a gap in the ability of the young generation to come up with creative solutions that can use technology and the platforms available to us to solve problems. And they realized that this gap needs to be filled, and the only way to fill it is to create a process whereby this young generation can learn.
Robotics center in Lagos decided to focus on training, because they can't expect these youngster to learn from nowhere. Somebody has to teach them, and of course they can't rely on government anymore, because the institutions are not even designed to have that capacity.
So they set out there at the robotics center to create a place, an environment, where they can stimulate ideas. They can build upon those ideas, they can test them out by developing prototypes, and then hopefully where they see potentials, they take it into production.
Their students not only discover the variety of automation solutions, but also get their hands on innovative projects using strict STEM guidelines. It's not just about creating an app, developing a website, or programming a house. They can program robots and position themselves to properly take advantage of emerging technologies.
This is a prototype of a toy car, this toy car was made with the most basic robotic components, an Arduino, DC motors, several motors, and a Bluetooth module. So the Arduino contains the code that controls the toy car, the DC motors are used for the wheels, and the Bluetooth module connects the toy car to the remote control. The remote control is actually an app that they also designed using MIT App Inventor.
They've made a quad pod, because it has four legs, that's why I call it a quad pod. So it just mimics living things behavior, it's in bionics. Bionics are devices or systems that mimics behavior of living things.
They used 12 several motors as the joints, so as an attractor, just like human joints on our body to enable movement. So there's an Arduino board there, which is a microcontroller, which is the brain of the system. There is a PCA driver that drives all 12 several motors at once.
You can use other drivers to drive them, but they use the PCA driver. There's a battery to power the Arduino and the PCA driver separately, and there's an ultrasonic sensor. So when it moves, when there's an obstacle in front, it takes some steps back and turn to other direction and keep on moving.
Working in groups, the young minds in Robotics center in Lagos explore solutions not limited to the COVID-19 pandemic, like a home automation system, a smart home waste bin, a humanoid prototype, and a medical ventilator.
Young innovators in training created a ventilator that doesn't require an oxygen cylinder. It generates its own oxygen by itself.
There is a concentrator there, so the oxygen is generated at the section of the concentrator. Then you have the airbag valve here. This is where the oxygen that has been generated from this section is channeled to other section, and then through this mechanism, the compression mechanism, the oxygen is passed through a filter there.
There's an air filter that passes through the pipe to the patient. So we can actually demo how to wear the mask. So as you can see, you can observe the flip here is opening and closing. So that's a proof that oxygen is actually going through the patients.
One young talent also created home automation system that can be controlled by a web interface, to make this, they use an ESP32 as a microcontroller, and the buttons on the interface are used to communicate with the microcontroller.
So to turn the lights off, we're going to turn off the lights in the room, and then we turn it back on, then we have the controller connected to these devices. So if we want to turn on or off the 3D printers, and they are both off at the moment. So we're turning it back on, and they are both on. So this uses Wi-Fi as the connection medium.
This is a smart home waste bin, and the main aim is to be able to enable someone to trash garbage without having contact with the waste bin.
So it works with the ultrasonic sensor, which is mounted at the front of the waste bin, to be able to sense the garbage coming in. So it switches on, because it uses the adapter. When it senses the bin, it opens and it closes immediately after.
Conclusion
Artificial intelligence, robotics, and coding adjust some of the many ideas that have been reserved for the technically inclined adults. But exposing younger minds to these concepts encourages them to improve their intellectual capacity in science and technology.
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