The fourth EECE Race Day was held at the University of Pretoria on 30 May this year, offering third-year microcontroller students at the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering (DEEC) the opportunity to showcase their practical skills and to put theory into practice.
One of the sponsors for the event was industrial and electronics distributor, RS Components, which donated power banks, 1-terabyte hard drives and complete Raspberry Pi kits to the winning teams.
Johann Hough and Mathew Fulton of the winning team ‘Team 2’, accompanied by Olorato Kabasia, marketing coordinator at RS Components SA.
Students were required to build autonomous robotic vehicles (ARVs), with a sensor system able to detect a multi-coloured track, which was developed as part of their analog electronics module. The race day provided them with a platform to work as a team and to demonstrate innovation and technical skills in developing these ARVs.
“The robotic vehicle race offers engineering students the opportunity to develop skills needed to survive and excel in an embedded, control-driven technological society,” said the head of the project, Prof Tania Hanekom of the DEEC at the university.
The project guides aspiring engineers through a carefully planned process to develop a fundamental set of engineering skills, which include hardware and software design, systems integration, the ability to work and function in a team, time management skills, perseverance and the good old indispensable “engineering gut feeling, which comes only with experience in the execution of engineering projects,” Hanekom explained.
Mellisa Naidoo, head of marketing at RS Components SA, stated that RS Components’ continued involvement in this project is in line with the company’s policy of supporting both professional and future engineers by giving them access to the components and tools they require to innovate. RS Components also hosts DesignSpark.com, an online technical community for engineers around the world, with more than 300 000 members who can be of assistance to students and engineers working on real-world applications.
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