Industrial Researcher Challenges Higher Education Minister’s Views On Mechanical Hi-Tech

A Bamenda base industrial researcher of INSTITUTE OF COMPUTERIZED MANUFACTURING & ROBOTICS, Mbeh Chinenge, has challenged Higher Education Minister  Prof fame Ndongo on the policy of teaching/learning of Hi-technology in school in view of setting the country on an industrialization scale. He proposes way out of this noose dive which working on the infrastructural aspect of such institutions. he says if you cannot fix it you do not own it meaning anybody who acquires a machine from the manufacturer and cannot repair it can not claim ownership of that machine.

In the last 12 years, this institute has been manufacturing Button Badge machines and Button Badge parts with factory machines indigenously conceived, designed, fabricated and deplored. Through the process of continuous research to advance factory machines with automation, they learnt  the hard way that industrialization plan especially with use of robots, there is need to first of all solve architectural and strategic issues in the learning institutions. Mbeh further defined Robotic thus Robotics is simply a branch of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science that deals with the design, construction, operation and application of robots as well as computer for their control, and sensory feedback of information. From industrial manipulators in factories to 3D printers in prototyping shops, these are all robotic systems. A complex robot often called a humanoid which is attached with sensory feedback of cameras is analogous to a service waiter in a restaurant.

OPEN ARCHITECTURE versus CLOSED ARCHITECTURE are fundamental paradigms which if not properly worked out in the initial stage before introducing any of the architecture in our school system, we would be simply selling our birthright for others to think for us. We will spend so much time learning some other people's technology at the detriment of developing ours. The closed technology which often in form of gifts are always turnkey and though convenient are expensive. When the machine system eventually breakdown only the maker will be able to repair it. “ If you can't fix it, you don't own it”, according to the repair manifesto. It is like spending our life time instead of developing our own gargets, but, mystifying and studying other people's gadgets. Mbeh holds strongly that the industrialization of Cameroon will work best on the OPEN ARCHITECTURE. It is cheap, through open source software and hardware available in the Internet, many players with specialized skills in the domain of their hobbies, competences and interests will interact in an ecosystem where creativity and free market competition is the norm. As we know how a whole robotic system works, mechanical system is the muscle, electronic system is the blood and the controlling system is the brain, we should ask ourselves as Cameroonians, what competencies do we have to adapt to this new technologies. Technology as we know it cannot be bought off-the-shelf like a loaf of bread. The machine will eventual breaksdown or will become obsolete.

OPEN ARCHITECTURE makes technology transfer easy. As the designs of the robotic systems are open and available, the state can initiate mechanical fabrication of various components in capable fabrication establishments. Same also with the electronic components and controlling software. The difficulties with an open architecture is how to harness the communities of hobbyists, students, businesses and financing institutions. The High-Tech Centre of ENSP endeavor will not remain an academic curiosity if all the robotic systems they invest their money and time have to make the designs available so that a student given a certain funding can be able to reproduce any of the systems, at the same time be able to deplore for manufacturing. It will be the beginning of emergence.

Linux, being an open source operating system, freely available with its source code, is the ideal platform for students and hobbyists to hack robots. In the Linux world, OPEN Frameworks and Architectures are freely available through the open source license for whoever to invest time and start learning how to interface microcontrollers and microprocessors. Raspberry Pi boards and Arduino boards for something less than 100,000F CFA a student can turn on and off sensors as well as spin motors. Remember, sensors are the eyes and motors are the muscles of robots. Sensors and motors can be scavenged from thrown-away machine systems like photocopying machines. To lure students to see gold in scavenging used parts is the institutional certification system to accredit the interfacing of sensors and motors. So that our innocent young geniuses can see a passed in an H.N.D. in the unrewarding act of playing with motors and sensors. If the High-Tech Centre of ENSP can leverage the power of the state institution for OPEN ARCHITECTURE it will be the centre of industrialization not only for Cameroon, but for black Africa.