AfrikaBot Robotics
During my high school years at Maranatha Christian School, I was deeply involved in the robotics club, where I built fundamental skills in basic electronics and motor control through various small projects. In my final year, I led my group within the team in a robotics competition hosted by the University of Johannesburg, which significantly expanded my knowledge in robotics and coding.
As a team leader, I guided my group through two competition challenges at the national open AfrikaBot competition.
Line Following Challenge: Assembled and programmed a robot using an Arduino control board, sensors, and servo motors to navigate a track while picking up a token placed in the middle. This was a time attack challenge that required precise calibration of the sensors and control algorithms to ensure accurate line following and token retrieval. Our effective implementation earned us 1st place.
Maze-Solving Optimization Challenge: We built and programmed a robot equipped with multiple sensors, and the coding required was more complex due to the need to solve a line maze with dead ends and 90-degree corners. After solving the maze once, the robot was expected to optimize its path on the second run, avoiding all dead ends. Our efforts in this challenge earned us 2nd place.
