STEM Education in Africa: Engineering Student’s Story

The package containing the The Board of Directors of Ardukopter 2.8 finally arrived from China, bringing the weight of our anticipation. I remember picking up it, the cardboard box exhausted slightly from its trip. While I was tearing the band layers, it looked like a long -awaited gift of a gift. But while I raised the Ardukopter 2.8 board out of the box, my heart sank. The board of directors, which was to be the cornerstone of our project, looked worn and old, with visible scratches and folded pins. It was only one of a cascade of reverse that my team will be confronted.

It all started when I was assigned to a project in the design of machines at Obafemi Awolowo University (OU), located in the heart of Ilé-Iifẹ̀, an ancient city of Yoruba in the state of Osun, in the southwest Nigeria, where I am a mechanical engineering student entering my last year of a five-year program. Oau is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Nigeria, known for its magnificent campus and architecture. Some people I know call it the “Nigeria Stanford” due to the large number of brilliant startups it has transferred. Despite its reputation, L’Oau – like all other institutions belonging to a federal government in Nigeria – is underfunded and prey to strikes by teachers, leading to interruptions in academics. The lack of funding means that students must pay their undergraduate projects themselves, which makes the success of any project strongly dependent on the financial capacities of students.

Dr. Oluwaseun K. Ajayi, a computer -assisted design expert (CAD), design of machines and mechanisms, gave us the freedom to choose our final project. I proposed a research project based on an article entitled “Method of simulation in advance for the roller wheel interactions of space rovers: a case study on the Rover Rashid of the Water»By Ahmad Abubakar and co -author. But due to the required calculation resources, it was rejected. Dr. Ajayi rather proposed that my comrades and I build a surveillance drone, because he lined with his own research. Dr. Ajayi, a passionate and motivated researcher, was motivated by the potential applications of the real world of our project. Its constant thrust for progress, although sometimes overwhelming, was rooted in its desire to see us produced a significant work.

While my team ended the dissemination of the preliminary concepts of the drone in CAD conceptions, we were ready to contribute money to the implementation of our idea. We carried out a cost analysis and decided to use a third -party supplier to help us order our components from China. We followed this path due to the problems of shipment and customs that we had already encountered. Taking the third -party route was supposed to solve the problem. We do not suspect what was going to happen.

As we finalized our cost analysis and started to bring back funds, the price of the components we needed had soaked due to a sudden economic crisis and a depreciation of Nigerian Naira of 35% compared to the US dollar in late January 2024. It was the genesis of our problem.

Initially, we were a 12 -year group, but due to the high cost per person, Dr. Ajayi asked another group, led by Tonbra Suoware, to merge with mine. The Tonbra team had planned a robotic arm project until Dr. Ajayi merges our teams and orders us to work on the drone, in order to exhibit it to the National Space Research and Development Agency, in Abuja, Nigeria. The merger increased our group to 25 members, which helped the individual financial charge, but also meant that not everyone would actively participate in the project. Many have just contributed their share of money.

Tonbra and I had the project advance.

With the consent of Dr. Ajayi, my teammates and I abandoned the “surveillance” part of the drone project and collected money for the development of the drone, totaling around 350,000 nairas (around US $ 249). We had to reduce costs, which meant moving away from the original specifications of certain components, such as the flight controller, the battery and the electrical distribution card. Otherwise, the cost would have been much more unbearable.

We were ready to order the components of China on February 5, 2024. Unfortunately, it was a long vacation in China, we were told, so we would not have the components in March. This led to tense discussions with Dr. Ajayi, despite having informed him of the situation. Why pressure? Our school semester ends in March, and the fact that the components arrive in March would mean that the project would have been expected for a long time when we finished it. At the same time, we, the students, had compulsory industrial academic training at the end of the semester.

Oluwatosin Kolade, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Nigeria Obafemi Awolowo, said that the Drone project taught him the value of failure.Andrew Esiebo

But what choice did we have? We could not go back from the project – that would have cost us our note.

We got most of our components in mid-March and immediately started working on the drone. We had the 3D printed frame at a cost of 50 nairas (approximately 0.03 US) per gram for a frame of 570 grams, for a total cost of 28,500 nairas (approximately 18 USD).

Then, we turned to the construction of the electrical distribution system for electrical components. Initially, we had planned to use an electrical distribution card to uniformly distribute battery power to speed controllers and rotors. However, the card that we originally ordered was no longer available. Forced to improvise, we used a Veroboard instead. We connected the battery in a configuration parallel to the speed controllers to ensure that each rotor has received an equal power. This improvisation meant additional costs, because we had to rent welding irons, hand forests, hot glue, cables, a digital multimeter and other tools of an electronic center in downtown Ile-Ile.

Everything was going well until it was time to configure the flight controller – the Ardukopter 2.8 card – with the help of software called Mission Planner. We worked daily, browsing YouTube videos, online forums, battery exchanges and other resources to get advice, to no avail. We have even downgraded the Mission Planner software on a few times, only to discover that the board of directors that we had waited so patient was obsolete. It was really heartbreaking, but we couldn’t order another because we didn’t have time to wait until he arrives. In addition, obtaining another flight controller would have cost an additional sum – 240,000 Nairas (around US $ 150) for a Pixhawk 2.4.8 – flight controller that we did not have.

We knew that our drone would be half cooked without the flight controller. However, given our end -of -semester time constraint, we decided to configure the transmitter and the receiver. We have established the final connections and tested the components without the flight controller. To ensure that the transmitter could simultaneously control the four rotors, we have tested each rotor individually with each transmitter channel. The objective was to attribute a single channel to the transmitter that would activate and synchronize the four rotors, allowing them to turn in unison during the flight. It was crucial, because without good synchronization, the drone would not be able to maintain a stable flight.

“This experience taught me priceless lessons on resilience, teamwork and harsh realities of engineering projects carried out by students in Nigeria.”

After the final configuration and component tests, we decided to test our drone in its final form. But a few minutes after the tests, our battery failed. This failure meant that the project had failed and we were incredibly disappointed.

When we finally submitted our project to Dr. Ajayi, the deadline had passed. He told us to load the battery so that he could see the drone come to life, even if he could not fly. But the circumstances did not allow us to order a battery charger, and we were as soon as we know where to get help with the flight controller and the battery. There are no technological centers available for such things in Ilé-Iẹ̀. We told Dr. Ajayi that we could not do as he had asked and explained the situation to him. He finally allowed us to submit our work and all the members of the team received a course credit.

Ingenuity does not replace funding

This experience taught me priceless lessons on resilience, teamwork and harsh realities of engineering projects carried out by students in Nigeria. This showed me that if technical knowledge is crucial, the ability to adapt and improvise in the face of unforeseen challenges is just as important. I also learned that failure, although discouraging, is not an end but a springboard towards growth and improvement.

In my school, the requests of mechanical engineering students are exceptionally high. For example, in a single semester, I have sometimes been assigned to four different major projects, each of a different teacher. In addition to the drone project, I worked on two other substantial projects for other courses. The reality is that the ability of a student to mark in these projects often depends strongly on financial resources. We are constantly overwhelmed by the management costs of many projects. The continuous economic challenges of the country, including the devaluation and inflation of the frames, only exacerbate this burden.

Essentially, when the world, including higher education committees and industry recruiters, assesses the transcriptions of graduates in Nigerian engineering, it is crucial to recognize that a note may not fully reflect a student’s capacities in a given course. They can also reflect financial constraints, difficulties in finding equipment and materials and the broader economic environment. This understanding must inform how transcriptions are interpreted, because they tell a story not only of school performance but also of perseverance in the face of significant challenges.

While I advance in my studies, I plan to apply these lessons to future projects, knowing that perseverance and ingenuity will be essential to overcome obstacles. The defaulting drone project also gave me a realistic overview of the world of work, where unexpected back and budgetary constraints are common. It prepared me to approach my career with a practical state of mind and an understanding that success often comes from how you manage the difficulties, not just how you perform plans.