Statement by Donald Grant, MEC for Education in the Western Cape

Learners at Athlone High School now have access to robotic technology used to explore the surface of Mars.

The learners can now use the technology to explore environments of their choice - and share this experience with learners in other parts of the world.

Representatives of the Gigapan Exchange Programme presented two Gigapan robotic, high-defintion cameras to the school yesterday (Thursday, 30 July 2009).

The robotic cameras are based on technology used to capture high-resolution panoramas by the Spirit and the Opportunity Rovers on Mars.

Illah Nourbakhsh, Associate Professor of Robotics at the Carnegie Mellon University, United States, led a team responsible for developing robotic control and imaging systems for the Mars Rover missions while director of NASA's Ames Research Centre.

These systems included an earlier version of the robotic cameras now still on the Rovers on Mars. The team decided to develop the Gigapan to improve learning and understanding between people on earth.

Professor Nourbakhsh described the Gigapan the project school staff and officials of the Western Cape Education Department, and gave teachers their first lesson on how to use the system.

The Gigapan Exchange Programme is donating the robotic cameras to schools in different parts of the world to make it easier for learners to share their learning experiences with peers in other countries via the internet.

The cameras are capable of taking high-resolution, 360 degree panoramas of any environment or scene, vertically and horizontally.

Learners can then explore the panoramas down to the finest detail, for example, to look at a beetle on a flower in a field of flowers. Learners can also annotate scenes, to build valuable learning materials.

Athlone is the second school in Africa to be given the cameras. The programme gave the first cameras to Lavela High School in Soweto, where learners have captured scenes in Soweto, including sites of the 1976 student uprising.

They have shared images with learners in Pittsburg, United States, and have discussed the scenes via special applications on the Gigapan web site. The Soweto learners have also displayed their panoramas at a Johannesburg art gallery.

The UNESCO Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet) is implementing the programme, represented in South Africa by the South African National Commission for UNESCO, based in the national Department of Education (DoE).

Programme representatives at the school yesterday included Professor Nourbakhsh, Chris Strebel from the UNESCO International Bureau of Education in Pretoria and Desmond Fillis of the DoE, who also heads the SA National Commission for UNESCO.

For enquiries, contact Bronagh Casey:  072 724 1422 or brcasey@pgwc.gov.za.

Visit our website: http://wced.wcape.gov.za