Academic City Partners with STEMbees
As part of measures to encourage and increase participation of girls inScience, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) related fields, Academic City University College in partnership with STEMbees, a non-governmental organization organized a robotic session for students of Aburi Girls Senior High School.
This activity is part of measures to prepare students of the school for the upcoming FIRST Global Challenge. The FIRST Global Challenge is an annual Olympics-style, international robotics competition. Aburi Girls SHS is representing Ghana for this year’s competition which will be participated by 160 countries. The projects these students are undertaking for the competition include designing and developing a biodegradable nose mask from plantain fibre, CubeSat Prototype and robots for different purposes.
ACity Engineering Students Assist
Academic City engineering students are currently assisting mentor these high school students as they develop their projects for the competition. The final and second year mentoring students of Academic City include Benedict Amoako- BSc. Information Technology, Barnabas Nomo- BSc. Computer Engineering and Louisa Ayamga- Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
Benedict Amoako, a STEMbees Robotics Associate is responsible for providing technical assistance for designing and building four different robots. Barnabas Nomo, a satellite enthusiast will provide technical guidance in preparing, inflating, and safely launching the weather balloon that will carry the nanosatellite.
The CubeSat prototype was successfully launched using a tethered weather balloon on Saturday, September 25, 2021 at Aburi Secondary School. The launch formed part of the FIRST Global Challenge pre event activities.
Speaking at the session, Angela Koranteng, Co-Founder and Programmes Director, STEMbees noted that the session through Academic City has provided the students with genuine engagement with real-world engineering concepts and an opportunity to improve on the various projects for the competition.
“I believe the session has provided an opportunity for these young girls to improve on their ideas and boost the confidence to make a difference in the competition and ultimately emerge as the winners”, she added.
Benedict Amoako remarked “I’m blown away by the amazing concepts these girls came up with. The breadth of creativity depicted by them is astonishing and we promise to provide the necessary support required to make them successful in the competition”.
According to Nomo, the session with the young girls had broadened his understanding of not only engineering concepts but has also helped to strengthen his ability to lead projects in technical areas.
