2021 Magazine

7 2021 | Edition No. 24 | A team of learners, ably led by Camryn Abrahamson, our 2021 Prefect of Technology has emerged from Parklands College Studios and is called the Parklands College Production Team. This team sets up and runs the sound and lighting for all of our events whether they are live, streamed or both. We have become extremely reliant on this incredible team and we are amazed at their efficiency, organisational skills and the over- all quality of their productions. It goes without saying that the practical experience and career insight they are getting will be invaluable in their futures. I would like to thank the team for their service to the College. W e first introduced Robotics at the College in 2007. After seeing that it was a powerful tool to enable our learn- ers to learn problem solving, we offered Robotics as a Utility in 2010 and eventually integrated it as a curriculum offer- ing in 2014. The success of our Robotics programme is clearly evident in the success of our competition teams. Another impor- tant reason why I love these Robotics competitions is because they use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals to get our children to think about solving the important challenges affecting our planet right now. This year’s World Robot Olympiad theme is “PowerBots - The Future of Energy”, where the robot challenges are all connected to the use of sustainable energy to combat climate change. In the recent South African National competition our Preparatory team, Technoblade, and our Secondary Team, Robodog, won their respective categories. Technoblade designed a robot that finds bro- ken lamps and replaces them with smart, energy efficient lamps in the Elementary category game. Team Robodog built a self-driving car that navigates a course of randomly placed red and green markers. Their robot must pass on the inside of red and the outside of green as quickly as possible. Noah Kemp and Johnny Zhu used Raspberry Pi and computer vision technology to achieve 90% of the total score. This is an incredible achievement in the pilot year of the WRO Future Engineers category. We are very proud of TechnoBlade and Robodog for being selected to represent South Africa in the 2021 International Online Final in No- vember. Only five South African teams will represent South Africa this year and this is the seventh year in a row that we are representing South Africa in this competition. We wish our teams all the best and know they will go for gold! Learners in our Mobile Application Development Incubator and “Girls in Tech” Utility, have developed and released a total of 11 apps on the Apple App store with a total of 121000 downloads to date. Learners in these Utilities develop apps to solve community challenges they have identified. Our most recent app is called “TouchBase’’, which was created by our “Girls in Tech” Capeable team. Team Capeable’s motto is “Helping people help people!”. Their app is a directory for non profit organisa- tions (NPOs) where they can list their events and needs. The purpose of the app is to connect volunteers to NPOs depending on their loca- tion. These girls won the 2021 Technovation South African Region- al Senior Competition and made it as far as the Global Semi-finals. They also won the Application Development Category at the 2021 South African Excellence in Education Awards and to top it off, in May this year Team Capeable, Nieka-Lee Ireland and three learners from Junípero Serra High School in San Mateo, California, presented their solutions in the NextVista.org “Creative Solutions for Global Good” event to delegates from over 15 countries. This event showcased how our learner ambassadors are “Reaching Outwards’’ to make a difference in the lives of others. At Parklands College we also promote and compete in eSports events. Studies show that eSports help develop better hand-eye co- ordination; quick thinking and decision making; strategy and commu- nication skills, amongst many others. We are very proud of our Coun- terStrike Global Offensive Team which placed second in the 2021 National High School eSports League this year. Let us not forget about our brilliant Science and Life Science Departments. In the recent Eskom Interna- tional Science Fair two of our learners performed ex- ceptionally well. In our Preparatory Faculty Gerhard Vosloo earned a Silver medal for his project which involved the investigation of the extraction of wa- ter from the atmosphere in drought stricken areas, using his innovative condensing apparatus. Ruby McCulloch, a Grade 10 learner, chose to complete her project on Agrisciences. Her project titled, “The effects of grey water on Basil’’, was inspired by the drought we experienced during 2018 when house- holds started using grey water to grow their plants. Her findings indicated that tap water is the best, laundry water is the worst and that shower water is the next suitable alternative grey water source. Her results are being used to assist the agricultural sec- tor in areas when drought occurs or where there is an inadequate water supply. She was awarded gold, for being the best in the category and “The Soil Sci- ence Society of South Africa’’ Award for her project. These are just a few examples of some of the vision- ary young thinkers in our school, who understand the needs of a community, are able to invent, collab- orate, communicate their ideas and solve complex problems to create a better future for us all. Finally, truly relevant 21st Century Science Educa- tion must expose and inspire young people, “to bold- ly go where no man [or person] has gone before”, to quote Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek. The likes of space faring companies such as Space-X and Blue Origin will need a generation of young passionate people who want to venture into space and live off Earth. In line with this, we at Parklands College are aiming to weave an Astronomy offering into our Science Programme. Our learners will be able to carry out EXPO and senior research projects under the supervision of a professional astronomer using our very own refracting telescope. This is the beginning of the Parklands College Astronomical Observatory! I would like to thank Mrs Roth for her incredible vision. Without her this school would not exist. Thank you to our board for their continued commitment to our project, our Principals for their love, passion and dedication to the College, our Management Teams who can achieve anything, a willing and professional IT team and a team of exceptional new era educators. We would like to thank the parents for entrusting their children to us to give them opportunities to find their purpose and reach their remarkable potential. The Matrics have been curious and have taken every opportunity on offer. They are now prepared to step into their futures. We know they will make us, but most importantly themselves, proud. Richard Knaggs Director of Technology Innovation The fact that we are seeing such innovation and leadership in our learners, affirm that as a school community we are truly fulfilling our Mission of “Reaching Outwards, Growing Minds, Building Futures”.