Learners from Zinyosini Senior Secondary School in Ntabankulu came up with a groundbreaking idea, to build a robot that dispenses medication for disabled and elderly people.
According to the deputy principal and mentor of Coding and Robotics at Zinyosini, Sinethemba Mvumvu, his school is one of several that are piloting this subject.
“State Information Technology Agency (SITA) issued a letter stating that schools must submit their proposals for the Coding and Robotics Challenge that was held last month. We then decided to take part with our learners; they built a robot that dispenses in reminding the elderly people about their medication,” said Mvumvu.
“Some of the things that were done by this robot were that even if the blood pressure levels of the patient are high, this robot will indicate it so that he/she may get an ambulance that takes the patient to the hospital.”
He added that there were 579 schools which also sent their proposals; then Zinyosini was among 20 schools chosen to participate in the event, held at Mpumalanga University in Mpumalanga, recently.
According to Mvumvu, the main challenge they had was that they did not have proper material, as this school is in the deep rural areas. He said even their laboratory does not have enough equipment, so their robot was just moving but did not do exactly what was needed.
Mvumvu said that despite these challenges they were sure that their idea was very good and people liked it.
“Due to financial problems we went with only four learners to Mpumalanga; they came back with R500 each and certificates. We were so proud because the organisers liked our idea.”
