UWE Bristol Alumni, Silas Adekunle, recently dropped into the School of Engineering’s education outreach hub, to donate a smartphone-controlled robot he invented whilst studying at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory.
The fluid moving, life-like robot known as MekaMon, was the world’s first intelligent gaming robot, but it’s also an amazing tool for teaching coding, and so equipping the next generation with the skills required for a digital robotic future.
With no prior coding knowledge required, children follow guided learning missions on MekaMon’s counterpart app, ReachEDU, learning to code MekaMon from simple block-based coding onto written code.
A great addition to UWE Bristol’s engineering outreach hub!
The Digital Engineering Technology and Innovation (DETI) Inspire team based at UWE’s new School of Engineering, were thrilled to accept the locally invented tech, and even keener to start putting it to use in engaging the school children |SPOILER ALERT| soon due to begin visiting the digital engineering outreach hub!
Expect to hear more about school visits to UWE Bristol very soon…
As for our Alumni extraordinaire, Silas first founded Reach Education in 2013 and has since moved into the development of cloud infrastructure for biotechnology automation in the UK. But he hasn’t forgotten his passion for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, sending MekaMon robots to Nigeria through another company he founded – Awarri – which aims to enable the development and adaptation of advanced AI & Robotics technology in Africa.
Good luck Silas and welcome to the outreach hub MekaMon!