On 16 August 2025 Sheen ran an interactive robotics and drone exhibition at NRF-iThemba LABS in Faure, outside Cape Town.

Where we were standing

iThemba LABS — the Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences — is one of the more remarkable pieces of scientific infrastructure in the country. It operates a set of particle accelerators, most of them at the Faure site, used for subatomic physics, materials science and nanotechnology, and for research into how radiation interacts with living tissue, including work that supports radiation protection and cancer treatment.

Alongside the research, it runs a long-standing schools outreach programme through its Visitor Centre: interactive science shows for primary learners, talks and workshops for high-school learners, open days and masterclasses.

Why robotics belongs on that programme

Accelerator physics is not something a school group can put their hands on. Robotics and drones are — and that is precisely what makes them useful company for a facility like this.

A learner who spends an afternoon flying a drone and programming a robot has, without being told so, done sensing, control, feedback and iteration. Those are the same ideas that operate at a much larger scale down the corridor. The exhibition works as an on-ramp: something you can touch today, attached to something you might spend a career on.

What the day looked like

The format was hands-on throughout. Robotics builds and programming on one side, drones on the other, with learners rotating between them rather than sitting through a presentation. The Sheen team ran the stations alongside the iThemba LABS outreach staff.

The most valuable part of a day like this is not the flying. It is the conversation that starts when a learner realises the person showing them the drone works with this every day, and that there is a path from where they are standing to where that person is standing.

Working with the science ecosystem

Sheen is a small company. The reach of a national research facility, a science centre or a provincial education department is not something we can replicate on our own, and we do not try to. Our part is the hands-on layer: kit that works in a busy room, sessions that start fast, and staff who can hold a group of thirty.

Several later entries in this timeline — drone career awareness with the WCED, the MICT SETA 4IR symposium — follow the same pattern.

Science centres, universities and research facilities can talk to us about running a hands-on robotics or drone activity alongside an existing outreach programme.