Students build autonomous tour kart

Waroona District High School students now have a new way to travel across campus after building an autonomous tour guide kart.

The kart will travel autonomously around the school with younger students on it while the kart tours and speaks about the various departments within the secondary area of the school.

Students so far have programmed the kart drive forward, back, left and right autonomously. The students will then start measuring distance and angles to create the tour journey.

They have spent the last few terms working on the project and developing their science, maths, programming, problem solving and presentation skills.
 

Waroona District High School mathematics teacher Miin-Tyi Chao said the program was part of an after-school STEM elective.

“I initiated the project because I wanted to further build the STEM culture and offerings at Waroona District High School,” he said.

“The idea was appealing because it fits with the current trend of artificial intelligence used in electric cars.

“When students engage in a practical task like the autonomous kart project, I can use the process to explain various scenarios where science and mathematics are used in problem-solving, hence why these subjects are essential.”

Student Jake Paterson said programming was a challenge but became easier over time.

“Programming is an awesome skill to have and opens up a heap of opportunities in the future workforce,” he said.

Student Isabelle Mendoza said the coding aspect was the most interesting part of the project.

“I like finding out what works to communicate with the computer through all the coding programs and projects we have been doing,” she said.

“Being able to create a bunch of things through coding on computers is just all very fascinating. I love discovering all of it.”

The project was a collaboration between UWA, Alcoa and Waroona District High School. It is expected the kart will be complete by the end of Term 4.