Vumbula Robotics Kit

We are specifically looking at the problem of inadequate and costly hands on STEM tools as well as the skills gap. Over 19 million Ugandans are below 20 years. Majority of these have hardly had a hands on experience with any STEM tools. A number of STEM organizations have come to extend trainings but majority of them hardly have the tools to provide sufficient hands on tools necessary to best prepare and position the learners mentally and physically for the changing world. In a typical Ugandan setting, a classroom has at least 60 students, schools and organizations can hardly say invest $10,000USD to acquire just a single EV5 kit that won't even serve 10 students at a go.

Also the protectionism mechanisms by certain manufacturers where to buy their kit you must to go through other parties that also have to get pay / commission from your purchase leading to unnecessary costs, lengthen the process, or failure to get the materials given your relationship with the middle man of which I know of two experiences of the sort in 2023.

Lastly, over 90% of Ugandan education institutions and most parents the primary goal is for the learners to pass exams as opposed to what they can really do practically and hence they become price sensitive as far as STEM kits are concerned.

Our solution is a robotics kit called "Vumbula" meaning "discover". Using power tools, we collect offcut wood piece as well as some new acrylic sheets and cut / create several pieces according to our designs. 

We also collect broken electronics especially dead printers, salvage motors (steppers and DC motors) and electronic components, then buy some brand new like micro-controllers, prototype the robots in our home workshop before we take them out in schools.

The students then get to assemble the mechanical parts and the electronics based on our guidance. Then we as well take them through programming using Pictoblox, Arduino, or C++ given the age bracket.

We have also previously sold our mini walker robots to Innovex for research purposes. We are also in communication with organizations like Mindset, Young Engineers, as well as Mint in Ghana among those that have expressed interest in our locally engineered tools, on top of the schools we conduct our STEM programs in mainly in Kampala.

Our solution is best suitable for learner from 8 years to 24 years. In that line our target groups include STEM organizations that conduct hands on activities, education institutions like schools from year 3 as well as Universities, research institutions in the field of technology, and ourselves through our hands on classes.

Currently, very few STEM organizations can access the expensive kits from abroad. Most government universities for example are not allowed to directly purchase abroad even if they may have the money they have to go through a third party through biding. Having the readily available will be able to tap into this gap.

Part of our team has gained experience in STEM since 2012 through their contributions to organizations in five regions (Central, Northern, Eastern, Western, and South Western) of Uganda, East Africa (Rwanda and Tanzania), as well as West Africa (Senegal and Ghana) as well as our 2023 hands on contributions to World Robot Olympiad (WRO) in South Africa. Through these hands on experiences, our team has gained remarkable experiences utilizing local materials for STEM activities. 

Through our works around the continents, we are establishing a rich and growing network of those interested in our creations.

The most recently improved kit is a robotics kit comprising of a chassis, tracks / chains, two tires, a support wheel, servo motor based arm with a griper, arduino based micro-controller, motor driver board, sensors like ultrasonic, DC motors and lithium battery parks salvaged from broken laptop batteries.

With the current kit we've been able to train in four schools reaching a total of 60 students.

We believe Solve has a much richer network not necessarily consumers but people or organizations that technically already went through where we are currently, for example having AI tools to enhance our clients' takeaways, or those that might have better ways of creating some of the parts we use or generally ways on how we can move to the next better level.

Secondly, we are looking at winning financial support to acquire at least three CNC machines like a Laser cuter for most of the mechanical parts, PCB milling machine for circuit boards and a 3D printer all of which will help us standardize our designs, and scale up our professional design.

Our solution is innovative in a way that it utilizes broken / e-waste to give birth to tools that instructors can use to build learners into competitive contributors to the dynamic world. 

Primarily because the communities we work in are starting to wake up to the fact that in today's changing world a degree alone is not enough but the student need to have relevant practical skills to be competitive and these are the some of the tools to offer them those skills.

Secondly our communities receive huge used devices from out of the country as well as from institutions say from Universities and for example there is hardly any e-waste recycling plant and this is an opportunity for us to give these components a second life.

Thirdly people in our communities are very price sensitive and can hardly afford to spend heavily on their children even if they would have loved too.

Last but not the list, not so many people can take the risk to buy something abroad even if they would have loved it for their children. Many fear to people to someone they have never seen and they would rather buy it at a slightly higher cost locally or simply find a substitute. Also the process of clearing at customs requiring say TIN of which many in these communities have never even heard of it.

Lastly is the national police to promote locally made goods through what is called Buy Uganda Build Uganda (BUBU). This in return pushes us to keep innovating to come up with what is appealing to consumers. 

One of the greatest is measured on the life of our learners what they do after the exposure to our tools. We've had at least 6 students acquire scholarships for farther studies in science fields.

Still amongst the older students we have had at least 8 have opened up Tech business like repairing devices in their communities as well as opening up real companies. 

Thirdly is the positive responses from other STEM contributors whenever we share about our developments. Many have request for collaborations in trainings as well as creating tools for them as well, and we at least worked with STEM organizations in 2023.

Our solution primarily built on Robotics and Mechatronics, Apps where students use MIT App Inventor to create apps that interface with the hardware using Bluetooth. Software is always at play to give the hardware the intelligence to perceive and navigate its environment, the internet of things where the sensors collect data from the environment, relays it to the micro-controller and given what the software uploaded, the respective actuators are activated.

We source our materials in mainly three ways, e-waste where we get say a broken printer at $10USD which strengthens our bond since they are normally looking for where to dump them, other electronics like micro-controllers and some sensors are normally shipped, then source brand new acrylic sheets, and some ply wood pieces. We then use our power tools to create the designs. At the end of the process for the small robots each ends at under $100USD

For the schools we are in, there are two options: 

1- We can run trainings using our own materials that we carry away after every training and they only pay for the service or

2- They can buy kits frim us where they can continue practicing even when we are away and that means they support us more than just for the trainings and normally we give them a discount.

Then there are organizations that have their instructors and all they need are the training tools from us. In case of any assistance, we normally support the instructors remotely.

In the last six months we've been able to supply kits worth 4.1 million Ugx in kits sold alone and not from our service of training. If we are able to acquire the Computer Numeric Control (CNC) machines, it will greatly improve the quality of our output to have a straight line where it should be and not a zigzag or if its a 5mm to be 5mm which is kind hard with our current hand tools, our parts will be precise.

The CNCs will allow us to scale up our daily production to reach more clients.

The CNCs will enable us generate revenue from clients that could be having their specific designs as well as opposed to having them idle.

These will also open up a new area of study in Computer Aided Design (CAD) which will be an extra revenue stream especially for students that will be training from our space as opposed to the school outreaches.