We recently hosted our second friendly competition of the year. Seeing how many learners showed up to watch the competition and support their participating friends was great. In this competition, learners from the Ikamva Youth were competing against a group from Awarenet. Both teams consist of learners from different schools around the area, but all participate in our robotics program.
After the competition, we asked 3 learners aged 13 and 14 some questions about the competition. They told us they knew about the competition through friends and because some of them are participating in the robotics program themselves. All learners agreed on the fact, that they’ll definitely attend the next competition as well. What they liked the most about the competition was how interesting and fun it was to watch their friends competing. The three friends we interviewed also mentioned how proud of their competing friends they are. Besides that, the learners also said that they are interested in robotics because they would like to work in a field such as software engineering, in which they would need this knowledge.
The winners of this friendly robotics competition were Asemahle Mancam (14), Lindokuhle Adam (15) and Anathi Khelekethe (15) also known as Team Awarenet. The learners are in grades 8 and 9 of Nombulelo Secondary School and Mrwetyana Secondary School. After their incredible performance, the learners were proud of their success and enjoyed how challenging the competition was. According to the group, especially coding the colour sensor of the robot was the hardest part.
Team Awarenet are no amateurs but rather robotics competition veterans as they have been to many competitions before this one. They seemed very dedicated and also assured us this would not be the last robotics competition they’d attend.