Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa
Robots are widely used as a vehicle to spark interest in science and technology in learners. A number of initiatives focus on this issue, for instance, the Roberta Initiative, the FIRST Lego League, the World Robot Olympiad and RoboCup Junior. Robotic competitions are valuable not only for school le...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
SAGE Publishing
2016-10-01
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| Series: | International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/1729881416662789 |
| _version_ | 1819057029366415360 |
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| author | Alexander Ferrein Stefan Schiffer Tracy Booysen Riaan Stopforth |
| author_facet | Alexander Ferrein Stefan Schiffer Tracy Booysen Riaan Stopforth |
| author_sort | Alexander Ferrein |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Robots are widely used as a vehicle to spark interest in science and technology in learners. A number of initiatives focus on this issue, for instance, the Roberta Initiative, the FIRST Lego League, the World Robot Olympiad and RoboCup Junior. Robotic competitions are valuable not only for school learners but also for university students, as the RoboCup initiative shows. Besides technical skills, the students get some project exposure and experience what it means to finish their tasks on time. But qualifying students for future high-tech areas should not only be for students from developed countries. In this article, we present our experiences with research and education in robotics within the RoboCup initiative, in Germany and South Africa; we report on our experiences with trying to get the RoboCup initiative in South Africa going. RoboCup has a huge support base of academic institutions in Germany; this is not the case in South Africa. We present our ‘north–south’ collaboration initiatives in RoboCup between Germany and South Africa and discuss some of the reasons why we think it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-21T13:32:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1c8a220798fa4315bb94d21c22c02f58 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1729-8814 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-21T13:32:48Z |
| publishDate | 2016-10-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems |
| spelling | doaj.art-1c8a220798fa4315bb94d21c22c02f582022-12-21T19:02:15ZengSAGE PublishingInternational Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems1729-88142016-10-011310.1177/172988141666278910.1177_1729881416662789Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South AfricaAlexander Ferrein0Stefan Schiffer1Tracy Booysen2Riaan Stopforth3 Mobile Autonomous Systems and Cognitive Robotics Institute at FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences, Aachen, Germany Knowledge-based Systems Group at RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany Robotics and Agents Research Laboratory, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South AfricaRobots are widely used as a vehicle to spark interest in science and technology in learners. A number of initiatives focus on this issue, for instance, the Roberta Initiative, the FIRST Lego League, the World Robot Olympiad and RoboCup Junior. Robotic competitions are valuable not only for school learners but also for university students, as the RoboCup initiative shows. Besides technical skills, the students get some project exposure and experience what it means to finish their tasks on time. But qualifying students for future high-tech areas should not only be for students from developed countries. In this article, we present our experiences with research and education in robotics within the RoboCup initiative, in Germany and South Africa; we report on our experiences with trying to get the RoboCup initiative in South Africa going. RoboCup has a huge support base of academic institutions in Germany; this is not the case in South Africa. We present our ‘north–south’ collaboration initiatives in RoboCup between Germany and South Africa and discuss some of the reasons why we think it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa.https://doi.org/10.1177/1729881416662789 |
| spellingShingle | Alexander Ferrein Stefan Schiffer Tracy Booysen Riaan Stopforth Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems |
| title | Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa |
| title_full | Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa |
| title_fullStr | Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa |
| title_full_unstemmed | Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa |
| title_short | Why it is harder to run RoboCup in South Africa |
| title_sort | why it is harder to run robocup in south africa |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/1729881416662789 |
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