600 South African Students Will Receive Robotics Training from GE Africa

By Staff Writer

Robots are no longer a fad.

An ABI Research study predicts the collaborative robotics market will surge to $1 billion by 2020, populating industry with more than 40,000 collaborative robots.

To take advantage of this expected growth, digital industrial firm GE Africa is planning to train 600 students across 30 schools in five provinces in South Africa in robotics.

The maker of power plants, jet engines, medical scanners and other industrial equipment said the high school students will receive training through a tailor-made e-learning course titled: “Intro to Mechatronics (i2M), powered by GE Africa”.

The training course includes a physical robotics kit made with advanced technology, designed by Mechanical, Electronic and Software Engineers.

The kit, which will be distributed to all students from the competing schools at the start of the program, was created to train the students on the fundamentals of constructing
their own rover- fabricating, assembling, and programming the unit.

GE said participants in the program upon completion of the training will be asked to upload a video of their fully assembled and movable rover to a website.

Then the digital industrial firm will shortlist the best 30 students based on creativity, rover movability and unique interpretation and implementation of recyclable materials.

The firm added that these top 30 participants will be invited to a one-day classroom training on Mechatronics and 3D Printing to help advance their rover designs even further.

There will be a grand finale event held in the first week of October where the top 30 students get a chance to present their rovers to an esteemed panel of judges from GE Africa and its
partners.