pictures from FIRST Lego League

Pictures of the 2007 Western Cape FIRST Lego League have been uploaded at:

http://robotrix.bizland.com/WP-Champs%202007/index.html

Micro Maniacs win 2007 Cape FIRST Lego League

Michael Struwig, Jonathan Wotherspoon and Davis Todt kneel down with the team's yellow Lego-block trophies, victorious at the end of the hard-fought 2007 Western Cape robotic championships, backed by team-mates Daniel Stokell, Dylan Vorster, Allister Smith and Daniel Jacobs.

The boys will be keeping a close eye on Sebokeng/Vanderbijlpark region this Saturday, which will be crawling, buzzing and whirring with robots. Forty schools from across Gauteng, the northern Free State, North West Province, and Mpumalanga have entered the northern championships at the Mittal Steel Science Centre.

The Micro Maniacs team from Elkanah House, a school in Tableview, will be battling whichever robots win in the Sebokeng/Vanderbijlpark region at the nationals later this year.

The Micro Maniac's coach, teacher Melany Liebich, said her team has now won the Western Cape championships for two years in a row.

One of her team members, Michael Struwig, a grade nine student, said Elkanah House was the highest-ranked team out of all the 2006 regionals. Sadly, due to a design flaw - a tank-style tread which stripped off in the heat of battle - the Micro Maniacs finished eighth in the nationals last year.

''This year we hope to do better at the nationals,'' predicted Michael, noting pointedly that the students designed their 2007 robot to use four wheels rather than a tank tread. ''And better gearing,'' he added.

i-Robo team enjoys Lego League

Wandile Ganya, Vuyelwa Dlungane and Loyiso Matyumza pose with Tiro Motaung (their coach) peering over fellow team members Azola Hobongwana and Bulumko Matshoba.

They are members of the i-Robo team - grade 10 students from Centre of Science and Technology (COSAT) school in Khayelitsha - who fought bravely in the 2007 FIRST Lego League championships at the MTN Sciencentre on Saturday October 27.

The team suffered several setbacks this year.

Wandile Ganya was feverishly revising the design of their robots on Saturday morning after being told that the attachments did not meet the specifications required, which were buried in pages of data.

Later the students discovered that obstacles from previous missions were not cleared between events, forcing their robots to maneouvre around blockages on the field of battle.

Coach Tiro Motaung said he was more upset at the results than his students were, who enjoyed the competition regardless.

Next year, he suggested, a preliminary try-out might be a good idea a week or so beforehand so students can get their competition nerves and fluffs out of the way.

With many students not having English as a mother tongue, Mr Motaung noted, it was difficult for them to understand the written instructions unless there was a strong graphic element.

* Thanks to Steve Sherman from Living Maths, who sent these photos off at an ungodly hour on Sunday evening, going above and beyond the call of duty.

Belgravia High robotics team win best coach

The Live Wires from Belgravia High, above, won the prizes for best coach for Mr Reagen Ford as well as for the most innovative research at the FIRST Lego League, said teacher Ghairoe Jacobs.

The team members of the Live Wires group, as pictured, are: (sitting) Aghtiri Mohamed, Bashiera Allie, Raheema Enus and Ryan Adams. Standing: Mehtaab Khan, Fehraaz Petersen, a supporter (Tabasum Mohamed), Jasson Kloppers, Imraan Kaprey, Adrian Rudolph, Zubair Banderker, and another fan/spectator (Zaahira Allie).

''Mr Ford (below) is the best teacher ever, he really deserves it,'' said Bashiera Allie. ''I think Saturday was the best day of my life. It was the first time that I partook in an event like this. It was just awesome.''



''Hopefully we can join next year again. It was a really an experience of a life time,'' Bashiera, the Live Wires team leader, said. ''I wish we could turn back time: all the memories, all the fun and all the fights made this the best, something I wouldn’t exchange for anything. Life is all about having fun and we had the most fun that day.''

Sadly, the team placed sixth in the Western Cape round of robotics, held at the MTN Sciencentre, Mrs Jacobs said. Nonetheless, she said, the learners enjoyed the experience.

''Generally, they found the tournament exciting and a good learning experience,'' she said. ''During the preparation, relationships are normally riddled with torment but at the end of the day it brings them closer together and cements them in unity.''

The Live Wires are all in grade 11, with ages ranging from 15 to 17. The school is situated in Athlone, and in particular Belgravia Estate.

Most of the learners originate from the surrounding areas like Rylands, Lansdowne and Athlone.

Thanks to Steve Sherman from Living Maths, who supplied the photo. Belgravia school is on 021 6965118.

Julie Cleverdon

Science Centre ''World Cup'' organiser

The MTN Sciencentre has appointed Julie Cleverdon as director of the popular attraction, which dominates the west end of the Canal Walk shopping mall in Cape Town and gets over 150,000 visitors a year.

Earlier this year, Cleverdon was part of the bid team which flew to the European Conference for Science Centres and Museums (ECSITE) in Portugal to ensure that South Africa could be the first country on this continent to host the sixth Science Centre World Congress in June 2011.

Cleverdon now sits on the 2011 Congress organising committee for what is considered the science centre equivalent of the rugby world cup. The MTN Sciencentre will be the host venue.

Perhaps she's been influenced by Jake White, her classmate from Lord Milner primary school in Settlers outside Bela Bela (the former Warmbaths). When White was appointed to coach the South African rugby team, in a nostalgic interview with the Limpopo newspaper Die Pos, he singled out Cleverdon as one of the few classmates he could remember from those days.

Alfred Tsipa, president of the Southern African Association of Science and Technology Education Centres (SAASTEC), said Cleverdon was due to deliver a paper on mobile science centres at their tenth annual conference at Bayworld in Port Elizabeth at the end of November, which will also see the launch of government's new Youth Into Science strategy.

''She's running one of the flagship science centres in the country,'' Tsipa said from his base at the University of Zululand science centre in Richard's Bay in KwaZulu-Natal. ''The MTN Sciencentre is a viable and commercially successful effort, and it's also highly unusual because it's been located in a shopping mall for seven years. Even overseas, I don't know of a science centre in a shopping mall but it's really practical location, it's going strong because it brings the science to the people.''

Cleverdon has also been closely involved with outreach efforts initiated by the Department of Science and Technology, including National Science Week, the annual SciFest Africa festival in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape, and branding every October as Astronomy Month.

Her adventures living in a private game park with a lesser bush baby are being worked into a children's book by The Witness journalist Sue Segar. An inveterate traveller, Cleverdon has just returned from India and has visited both Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania, Egypt, Uganda, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

Cleverdon succeeds MTN Sciencentre founder, Professor Mike Bruton, who now works down the road in Century City at the MTE Studios, the designers of the Sultans of Science exhibit on Islamic inventors which is currently on display in the USA.

* For more information, please contact Julie Cleverdon at 083 276 9501 or 021 5298110 (switchboard 021 5298100) or email julie.cleverdon@mtnsciencentre.org.za

The Times newspaper, October 25

GOLD MEDALS: Sive Nunu, left, and Lungelwa Tyeda from Intlanganiso High School in Khayelitsha

Live wires tackle shack fires

Published:Oct 25, 2007

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EMPOWERING: The annual Eskom Expo For Young Scientists encourages teenagers to communicate their discoveries in way that is accessible to their peers



Two Grade 11 pupils from Khayelitsha walked away with gold medals for their work, writes Christina Scott.

The national Expo For Young Scientists finals in Pretoria were an electrifying experience for teenagers Lungelwa Tyeda and Sive Nunu.

It was not electrifying because Eskom sponsors the expo, or because the subject of their display was the prevention of electrical fires in Khayelitsha’s densely populated Site C, where they live.

It was electrifying because, as a judge walked towards their exhibit, the 16-year-olds from Intlanganiso High School were connecting their equipment using an unfamiliar system of wiring. The surge protector tripped the power supply. The entire row of displays was plunged into darkness.

“We have learnt something,” said Sive ruefully. “We mustn’t do things when we’re not sure!”

But at the end of the day, the two Grade 11 students walked away with gold medals for their project, which used interviews with residents of their township to highlight the role played by dangerous electricity practices in starting shack fires.

The winners say their project was inspired by the need to prevent the frequent electrical fires in their informal settlement, which often lead to severe injury.

“We wanted to look at the main causes of the fires: people not switching off their electricity, cable theft, children getting shocked by live electrical wires left exposed by cable thieves and incorrect electrical wiring,” said Lungelwa. “Houses are burning each and every day because of illegal connections.”

They spent weekends and hours after school distributing questionnaires to neighbours. Then their work appeared at the Khanyagula Expo, now funded by telecommunications company Tellumat and facilitated by the Medical Research Council.

Khanyagula was started in 1997 by a small group of school science teachers from Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Guguletu and Langa.

Khalipha Ramahlape, community liaison officer for the Medical Research Council said: “The recent gold medals, as well as the increase in participation by underprivileged communities at the expo, are a manifestation of our passion to develop the next generation.”

Appearances in the Cape Town finals of the Expo For Young Scientists, which were held at the MTN Sciencentre, helped the two gospel-loving girls develop faith in their own abilities.

Lungelwa, lives with her little brother and her father, who is an unemployed foreman. Her mother and two sisters live in Nqamakwe in the Eastern Cape.

Describing the national finals, Lungelwa said: “Everyone there is very competent, so you must fight for yourself. We learned that you have to make you own way to the gold medal.”

It was the duo’s first visit to Pretoria.


“We stayed in hotels, it was so fabulous. The rooms, they are so nice. Their showers!” Lungelwa exclaimed. “There are no showers in houses in Site C. We have a tap in the yard.”

Sive’s gold medal hangs on the bedroom wall of her father’s Site C home. Most of the homes in the neighbourhood are made of wood and zinc. Illegal electricity connections dangle from rooftops.

Her father and her mother were very supportive,” she said.

The support of Chris Diwu, a science teacher at Intlanganiso High School, was also critical.

“When we came back from Pretoria with the gold medals, they introduced us to the whole school at assembly,” said Sive.

“ Our teacher was so happy. When we got to class , everyone clapped and he took a photo.”

Sive’s research for the Expo has resulted in her falling in love with engineering. And, despite her family having little money , she’s determined to study further.

“I want to prove that anyone who trusts themself can become an engineer,” she said. “Even if you’re a girl.”

In the meantime, both girls are working on their singing skills. Their cellphone voicemail messages, which ask callers to speak after the beep, are delivered gospel- style — soprano for Sive, alto for Lungelwa.

But they’re practising their maths as well as their music.

“Most people don’t want to do maths,” said Sive. “I think practice makes perfect. If you really want to do something, you have to ask in order to know it. I enjoy it and I like to practise it.”

They’re already planning to enter the 2008 Expo, even though they will be writing their matric exams next year. “We need to start preparing for it next month — after exams,” said Lungelwa.

They’re also good ambassadors for the competition and go out of their way to encourage other students to participate in it.

“There are many opportunities if you enter. For junior scientists it’s really amazing,” Sive said.

“You can win scholarships, you can win a trip overseas and you can experience a lot,” Lungelwa said.

She also praised the sponsors and organisers of the Expo For Young Scientists: “They’re doing a lot for many children. We really appreciate what they have done for us. ”

Detlef Basel of the MTN Sciencentre, who is a director of the Eskom Expo For Young Scientists, said:

“It’s incredible that the Western Cape students received 11 gold awards out of 22. That was quite superb, a brilliant effort by the learners.”

Rustenburg Girls Junior School

Shahied van Nelson (above) and Siphosetu ''Dudu'' Dudumashe are bringing the MTN Sciencentre's mobile laboratory to the Rustenburg Girls' Junior School on Main Road in Rondebosch on Saturday October 27 for the school's annual fund-raising Morning Market.



Shahied (seen here demonstrating that he always keeps a fire extinguisher handy)and Dudu will be putting on two chemistry explosion shows as well as putting out the mobile discovery stations for kids and adults to play.



This is the mobile science van's first visit to the historic school, founded in 1894, although some of the buildings date back to Dutch colonial times.