Free-of-Charge Robotic Competition for Children

Do you know how many countries played in the inaugural FIFA World Cup?

The 1930 FIFA World Cup was the inaugural FIFA World Cup, and it took place in Uruguay. Thirteen teams (seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America) entered the tournament. Only a few European teams chose to participate because of the difficulty of travelling to South America. In the final game, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 and became the first nation to win the World Cup.

What does this have to with The African Robotics Challenge??

The inaugural African Robotics Challenge (#ARC2019) took place at the University of Pretoria in Gauteng, South Africa on the 8th and 9th of August 2019. Plenty of interest was shown by nations throughout Africa. However, because of the long and costly trip and lack of funding, very few teams registered. As the date of competition neared, some withdrew partly because of the low numbers of countries who confirmed their participation. The competition was expected to bring together in South Africa 12 African Countries, but 3 countries were present. Namely, Team South Africa - the Host country, Team Lesotho and Team Cape Verde (the only team that was not from the southern region).

As far as resources, we didn't have what we wanted but we received most of the things we needed. Our fundraising goal was to raise $10,168 - we raised $215 from 6 donors (A BIG thanks to YOU for being among the "Innovators" and "Early Adopter" of this initiative). 

Many people turned up to volunteer for the event, a special shout out to the Reddy Family for their availability and for going above and beyond the call of duty e.g. they opened their house for total strangers from another country. Several adult volunteers acted as judges, pit admin, referees, queuers, etc. The students were inspired to see their community leaders and parents sacrificing their time to support a student activity. It gave a sense of importance and value to the whole event for these students. So while we didn't raise enough fund to pay for, say the photographer or sound system, we received in-kind donations from local sponsors and community volunteers.

What about the spectators you asked? While I'd have love to say that the attendance of inaugural ARC was nothing short of "an overcrowded Michael Jackson concert", I can't... because it was a poor turn out. Whether it's because the locals didn't have a compelling reason for to be there, or because they had previous commitments, the less than desirable attendance rate, among other mishaps, made this event a humbling experience. E.g. The Keynote speaker cancelled one day before the event, Robots were not functional -- there was a time we (the organizing committee members) asked ourselves "can we have a robotic competition where robots do not compete?" 

Here come the dreaded questions: Was the event #ARC2019 a success? is it worth doing again?

When my friends asked me these questions, I said: If this was a party, I would have have said 'this blows'... fortunately, it wasn't a party. High attendance tend to be correlated to a successful event, but this was not the way we measured the success of ARC 2019. If our donors ask us to prove that our spending and effort was worth it, here is how I will respond: Based on our identified goals, which were to:

we did alright (if I do say so myself)... The organizing team members were able to react with agility and we were unstoppable.  This event enabled students to develop valuable, transferable, real-world skills, including:  teamwork, leadership, creative problem solving, critical thinking, designing, programming, and communication as they relentlessly work together to get their robots on the field. To me, that is wordy to be called a success story.

The very early days for the FIFA competition is described as having been a failure. Fast forward to 80 years later, FIFA reported Two Hundred and Four (204) countries to have entered qualification for the 2010 FIFA World Cup... and the qualification phase takes 3 years (to determine which teams qualify for the tournament phase). The point is: FIFA World Cup flourished from an invitational event to be the most prestigious association football tournament in the world. 

Likewise, we will strive to make ARC an annual event and positively impact the future of millions of students from all over Africa. Thru this initiative we will help create a workforce with the necessary skills for the information based economy of the future... that's the impact are we prepared to be accountable for.