Mr Potter (Director of Digital Strategy)

Robotics and AI are clearly something our students see as hugely valuable to their progression. We have recently invested in a humanoid robot capable of machine learning and this has been tremendously popular with six groups from Years 9-11 signed up to be involved. We are also delighted to announce that our Computer Science department have recently organised a student mentorship program with the Robotics department at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Tobi Apesin (Year 11) will be updating the school about the programme. We hope you enjoy reading her first session below:

"I’ve recently started an AI and robotics mentorship with the Eureka Centre, Cardiff Metropolitan University. I first met my supervisor before half term and in that meeting we just did introductions and discussed the overview of the mentorship before she asked me about what I wanted to do with this program. I personally want to go into AI research, looking more about how the algorithm thinks and comes to conclusions (neural networks, fuzzy logic, deep learning, etc- I’m personally more interested in the ‘brain’ and thinking capabilities of AI). With all this information, she told me that she was going to speak to her supervisor to find out ways she could make the program tailored to me and with that, that was our first meeting.

“I had my second meeting this Wednesday 5^th May and was informed that my mentorship had turned into a year long internship which was very exciting to learn. I was also told that I was also getting a new supervisor as she (my current supervisor) was finishing her internship this year and although I has only met her twice, she was very helpful and I think I’m going to miss her.

“She informed me that my internship would include monthly meetings with my supervisor as well as monthly meetings at the Eureka centre. All of which I’m very happy and looking forward to participating in. Afterwards, due to my interest with AI research, we went over some research papers and she explained to me how to find reliable research journals and papers and even recommended some studies/papers/journals/books that I should (and will) read.

“Although I’m mainly interested in research, my supervisor explained to me that the Eureka Centre drives interdisciplinary amongst their interns/mentees and that they encourage them to look outside their desired field and have basic grasp in other fields. Because of this, she should and encouraged me to try and program the JD robot (BGS' recently purchased humanoid) to do certain things, directing me to courses to help. I will be trying to code these during robotics club with the other members.

I’m very excited for what’s to come and I do hope to update this as more stuff happens in a hope to possibly inspire some of you to look into STEM (particularly AI- I’m biased) programs and opportunities like such when you have the chance to. I think I have to give a very huge thank you to Mr Potter (Director of Digital Strategy) for finding and making contact with the host of the program.”