A high school student in Tanzania has invented a solar energy powered human robot that walks, turns its head and performs a couple of tasks, reports the Daily News.
Gracious Ephraim from Ilboru high school in Arusha is the first ever student in the East African country to build a robot that actually works and moves around, according to his teachers.
“I am trying to innovate things that can solve problems because for many years, science students in the country did not want to invent, they were all focusing on getting employed but being a scientist is all about devising and making new things,” says Ephraim.
Ephraim used his pocket money to purchase locally available materials such as wires, metals etc. worth approximately 90 USD. He has been working on the robot for about 12 months inspired by movies such as Robocop and Transformers.
The human robot can bend, pick up stuff and carry loads at a high level of effectiveness and accuracy.
“Tanzania aims at industrialisation meaning that factories and other production lines must work 24 hours, but humans cannot work around the clock, so I envisage to have robots working at night and people during the day, this will also reduce the costs of paying workers overtime,” said the student.
The innovator says that he has installed a memory card with recorded voice notes that can be remotely triggered to make the home-made machine reply to specific questions or even sing some songs.
credit – africa.cgtn.com