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Mechanical Technology — December 2015
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Innovative engineering
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Thymio Robot collaboration at Eden College
T
he University of KwaZulu-Natal
(UKZN) together with the NCCR-
Robotics centre in Switzerland, have
jointly begun work on the Thymio Robot
project in South Africa, which involves
learners from Eden College, Durban.
A world-first international event, named
‘Remote Robotics using the Thymio 2’
(R2T2), took take place on November 4,
at which Eden College was connected to
schools in five other participating countries,
which included Switzerland, Italy, Austria,
France and Russia. Via YouTube streaming
video and Skype chat, learners interacted
with each other to remotely program and
control robots in Switzerland using Thymio
software.
The event replicated a search and rescue
scenario on the planet Mars. A meteorite
damaged an important Martian power
station and the damage needed to be as-
sessed so that the main generator could
be restarted.
The 16 robots on the Mars site had to
be controlled by a team of
engineers and space experts
from Earth. Between Mars
and Earth there is a delay in
video transmission (replicated
at the event) and direct re-
mote control is impossible.
Therefore the Earth experts
need to programme the ro-
bots to solve the tasks.
The Thymio Robot project
in South Africa, headed up by
Riaan Stopforth and Shaniel
Davrajh from the School of
Engineering at UKZN, aims
to enlighten scholars on bet-
ter understanding of robotics.
The collaboration with UKZN began
when, Prof Francesco Mondada, a pro-
fessor in Mechatronics Engineering from
EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale De
Lausanne) in Switzerland, developed an in-
terest in robotics education and developed
the Thymio robot as an educational tool.
The Thymio robot is programmed using
a graphics interface and generates the code
in text on the side of the screen to allow
learners to observe the commands and cor-
relate them with the graphics. This allows
programming techniques to be learned and
programs to be modified using advanced
commands.
q
Above and left:
Team UKZN and its
Hulamin finished the 3 000 km World Solar
Challenge in 13
th
place, only 30 minutes
behind the NWU team.
Learners from Eden College, Rachel Hamilton, Resheen
Ramsamy and Glenda Poswa, participated in a world-first
international event, ‘Remote Robotics using the Thymio 2’
(R2T2), which took take place on November 4 and involved
students in robotics from South Africa, Switzerland, Italy,
Austria, France and Russia.
cover 6.0 m
2
of the vehicles surface.
Speaking before the race, team leader,
professor Albert Helberg said that the
Sirius was propelled by the amount
of energy used by a hair drier (800 to
1 800 W).
At the outset Helberg’s objective was
to cover the distance in five days at
close to the vehicle’s optimum speed of
75 km/h. “Our biggest dream will come
true if we can only finish the race and
at the same time be the first team ever
from Africa to cross the finishing line.
This will put us in the record books.”
His dream came true.
“This is a learning project, which
forms part of our long-term vision. The
experience will enable us to aim for a
podium position in 2017. It can be done.
We have the expertise to develop our own
technology further and better,” he said in
advance of the race.
We commend the success of both
the UKZN and the NWU teams and, in
the light Helberg’s accurate performance
predictions for the Sirius X25, we look
forward to a South African podium finish
in 2017.
q