Home away from home

I would like to write a post about my home here in South Africa, the other volunteers I am living with, and the family that is hosting all of us. I can still remember when I first arrived at the house, quite tired after nearly a full 24 hours of flights. As I walked in to the warmly lit house, I was greeted by Lecia and Leslie Bagley. Leslie grabbed one of my bags, only to exclaim that instead he would take the lighter one! Little did he know, they weighed just about the same. :p

A trip to Robben Island

On Saturday (June 4, 2011) we took a trip to Robben Island, where political prisoners were kept during the apartheid era. A few days earlier, Liam got us all tickets for a guided tour through the prison turned museum. From the Bagley home, we took a mini-bus and train to get to the waterfront. Here are a few photos from along the way!

Week 1: Arrival, induction and final preparations

I have been meaning to write this post for quite some time! As such, I am having a bit of trouble remembering my first week here. Nevertheless, I hope this post gives a decent sense of what I was up to here in Cape Town. I'm sorry there weren't many photos from that week - I did not want to look too much like a tourist. :p

Arrival
I arrived in Cape Town at night on Friday, May 27, 2011 nearly a full day after leaving Raleigh. When we landed, the pilot asked us to remain seated so that he could arrest a man who had been smoking in the airplane restroom! Anyway, we eventually got out and rode buses over to border control. When it was my turn for processing, I actually almost did not get a visa to enter! I had not printed out my return ticket, which would have proved that I was going to leave Cape Town in two months. Fortunately, Minda had written me a letter explaining the purpose of my trip and the parts I was carrying with me. Looking over it, the officer decided this would be acceptable proof and gave me the tourist visa. What a start to my trip!

While waiting for my bags, I changed and cleaned up a bit. Some folks from Projects Abroad picked me up and took me to the Bagley house. That night, I watched some television with the guys in the house and unpacked my things. As I recall, I slept quite soundly that night. The next day, the guys went to play paintball with other Projects Abroad volunteers and invited me along, but I decided to spend a relaxed day at home. :) It was nice and Lecia even took me to Wynberg, a nearby town, to withdraw some money and buy a much needed bottle of shampoo.

The next day, I attended the New Apostolic Church with Lecia and Leslie. For dinner, I went with the other volunteers to get some excellent Braai at Mzoli's. At the counter we chose all the meat we wanted to have grilled.

How I came upon this opportunity

It feels a bit strange to think that I am actually in South Africa. The journey here has not always been smooth and there were a few minor bumps along the way. It seems like a good idea to write a post briefly describing how I came upon this opportunity so that I may properly thank those who made all this possible.

The planning season began on September 9, 2010 when our program had an interest meeting for everyone potentially going on an International Summer of Service in 2011. During the meeting, the Assistant Director of our program, Minda Brooks, explained the project proposal process and gave us advice on getting started.

I found the first step of deciding on a project to be quite difficult. To make a long story short, I thought about a variety of ways to choose a project and discussed them with Minda, my dad, and my fellow Duke students. Through this process, I eventually came to the idea of training students in preparation for a robotics competition.

When I mentioned this to Minda, she directed me to Hannah Hellebush, who is also in our program. Hannah had worked with the South African Education and Environment Project (SAEP) and found it to be a wonderful opportunity to serve and teach. In particular, she had worked with SAEP's Hope Scholars Program, an after school program in several of Cape Town's township schools.

I met with Hannah to ask about her experience with the Hope Scholars and to get her feedback on some of my thoughts and hopes for the summer. It was wonderful to hear about the work she had done and how it had impacted not only the students, but also her. She thought the robotics project might be possible and got me in touch with Norton Tennille, founder of SAEP.

I sent Mr. Tennille a short e-mail about who I was, asking for a chance to discuss the possibility of working with them. I was contacted by Sara Muhl, who was fielding volunteer queries and we began our discussions! It was now the start of December. Over the next several months we e-mailed back and forth discussing what kind of placement was possible and what resources were available for the robotics course. It seemed like everything was lining up, but unfortunately in mid-March I found out we would not be able to fit the robotics course into their program.

Their first robot

The first phase of the course consists of students building and programming a pre-designed robot. The robot they are building searches for its box. Here are some photos of the robot they are making!

The school - Some initial information

I am partnering with Hyde Park Primary School to provide this course to students. I am still learning a lot about the school, but thought it would be a good idea to give some initial information. To start, Hyde Park Primary is located in Fairways, just down the road from where I live in Parkwood. Here you can see the route I take to work every morning!

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The project

My first post did not include many details about the robotics project I am working on here in Cape Town. Instead, I've reserved this entire post for just that! Perhaps it is best to start with a more detailed overview of the project, then briefly explain the rationale for doing this project.

Overview
I am developing and teaching a robotics course to help train students in systematic and careful problem-solving. The course contains two phases: learning and design. The learning phase is centered around the construction of a pre-designed robot. This experience will prepare students for the design phase, where they design and build robots of their own. The course as a whole will culminate in a public exhibition where the students will share the fruits of their hard work!

The currently planned course consists of 12 hour-long classes for the learning phase, followed by 12 hours of work time for the design phase and 1 hour for the exhibition. Students work in pairs, with one set of parts for each pair. In order to ensure that each pair receives sufficient instruction and guidance, the maximum class size should be around 10 students. At present, limited funds has brought us down to 8 students.

At the end of the course, I will be leaving behind the parts and detailed lecture notes. I am also training a teacher at Hyde Park to teach the course for the following terms.

Brief Rationale
Learning systematic and careful problem-solving is crucial to the future success of students everywhere. As they continue in their education they will be required not only to recall information, but also to apply their knowledge in a systematic and careful way to solve ever more challenging problems with confidence. Furthermore, if these students are to become leaders who usher in the brighter futures we hope for, they will be called on to tackle ever more complex issues with more serious consequences. This will require from them an even greater ability to work systematically through problems with careful attention to all of the involved complexities.

Robotics provides students an opportunity to learn systematic and careful problem-solving. Creating robots from individual parts will teach them to think systematically, as they learn to combine their knowledge of each part to predict and even design the overall behavior. Work with these robots also has a small margin for error – mistakes ranging from simple typos to more complex logic errors will cause the robot to malfunction or not function at all! This will teach the students to both think and work carefully, confident that each of their steps is correct. Furthermore, identifying and fixing their mistakes will teach them how to diagnose problems systematically and develop solutions that directly address the errors.

Robotics provides an engaging and exciting context to learn these problem-solving skills. Rather than learning these skills as theory applied to seemingly meaningless problems, students will see how these skills are crucial in the creative process of making a robot. Furthermore, the students get to see their efforts culminate in their robots sort of coming to life. This is incredibly exciting!

A first post

Hello!

Welcome to this blog. :D I must confess I've never blogged before so I'm not quite sure how to do this. I suppose quickly introducing myself and this blog would be a good way to start. Here goes!

My name is David Hong and I am currently a rising junior at Duke University in the Benjamin N. Duke Scholarship Program. As a part of our program, we are all sent to serve abroad. We hope that through this International Summer of Service our program will make a lasting impact in places of need around the world, and maybe even find that these experiences have left a lasting impact on us as well. For my International Summer of Service, I am spending two months in Cape Town, South Africa to develop and teach a robotics course at Hyde Park Primary School. I am also training a teacher at the school, Mr. Zhaun Borcherds, to offer the course after I leave. There is much more to say about this project, the school, my host family, and how I came upon this opportunity. Perhaps a few later blog posts would be better suited for that. However, I would like to quickly thank Projects Abroad and the Benjamin N. Duke Scholarship for making this opportunity possible. I have many others to thank, but will leave that for my post about how I came upon this opportunity. Anyway, I suppose that all gives a decent idea of who I am and what I'm up to!

Now, a bit about this blog. Perhaps the best way to introduce this blog is to answer the question: What is the purpose of this blog? As I think back, I decided to write this blog primarily to share the progress here with folks back home. It would serve as a regular update of the student's work in this robotics class. Indeed this is still the purpose of this blog, but I would like to expand it. I hope this blog may even be able to broadcast the students hard work and great potential to the world. Perhaps seeing these students make robots may even inspire us all to believe that indeed anything is possible. We need only set our minds to it.

Well, I think that introduces me and this blog. I must confess that I actually arrived two weeks ago and haven't written any other posts yet. I have a lot of catching up to do! I hope you enjoy reading this blog and seeing the work being done here in Cape Town. May it be a blessing to you.

Warmly,
David