INNOVATION CENTRE
Girls rise to the challenge and display robotic skills
Aspiring young mechatronics engineers show off electric car ideas for Mars at the GE Africa Innovation Centre
The GE Africa Innovation Centre in Houghton, Johannesburg, was abuzz on Friday as children — nearly all girls — tested their programmable electric vehicles, designed to explore Mars. Made from materials such as plastic Coca Cola bottles, ice cream sticks, CDs, cardboard, glass and masking tape, an amazing array of battery-driven machines was on display, developed by grades 9 and 10 pupils from schools across SA. "You program the distance you want to travel and the angles you want to turn," Kamogelo Sihlangu, a Grade 10 pupil from Ivory Park Secondary School in Midrand, said on Friday. "I want to study electrical engineering when I go to university," she said. "[The lack of women in engineering] was some kind of stereotyped thing, but now, that is changing." General Electric (GE), a global supplier of power plants, aviation and marine engines and healthcare and industrial equipment recently launched an introduction to mechatronics programme with Digicate, a digital education academy ...
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