17-year-old Isah Barde who lives in Kano in northwestern Nigeria is one of the few people in the world who looks back on coronavirus lockdown of 2020 with some positives as it is day time he gets ginger to do something that puts him in the public eye.He designs a robot out of cardboard and it moves.Isah has had an interest in invention since he was small, telling BBC Pidgin in an interview that he first started by designing tractors and excavators before shifting his mind to robots.A Secondary student at the time, Isah said he got his inspiration from movies and videos online and it was from them that he put it in his mind to start designing robots.Isah Barde: Meet the 17-year-old who used cardboard to build a robot“The truth is nobody taught me to design robots, I watch movies and I see how they move and how they do things that’s what attracted me to start designing my own.”The youngster who just got a federal government scholarship to study Computer Engineering at Baze University inside Nigeria’s capital Abuja said some of the materials he uses for his robot are simple and everyday items.The designer used cartons and some everyday items like pen covers for his robot“I use cartons, pen covers, bottles those are materials that are not hard to get then it comes also have the ones that I will buy for market like DC motors.”Isah alone.“The DC motors are the most expensive of the materials I use for my design and it is just N500 for each one and I use six inside the robot.”“After I designed the robot finished, that’s where my next mission started which was to make it move instead of just for it to just move, so I came and started working on the exoskeleton that made it move.”“So at the moment, the robot can mimic what I’m doing if I move my hand up it will do same and if I bring it down, it will also copy me and its fingers can also grab something.”He added.Isah also said it took him two years to finish the robot design which he used to attract NITDA who gave him a scholarship in line with his ambition.Isah said he started designing robots during the coronavirus lockdown forIsah said some of the challenges he faced were lack of some of the high powered materials he would have liked to use and also the fact that some people didn’t believe him when he first said he wanted to design a robot.He also said that at times, he’ll finish one section of the robot but will begin to unbundle it because he’s seen a better unit that will work for the place.“In my area, no one has physically seen a robot so when you say you want to build it, some people won’t take you seriously.”The 100 level student said after he finished the work, people started praising him for his achievements.“They started saying wow we never knew you could achieve something like this.“What this experience taught me is that if you want to do something, don’t worry about what people say just do it.”The young man says this is just a starting point for himIsah said that as far as robots are concerned, this is just a starting point for him as he wants to build a bigger and better robot.“This is just my starting point, my dream is to build artificial intelligence robot the ones that can control themselves automatically without any remote control.”He also hailed his family for their support in achieving what he did.© 2022 BBC.External site does not concern BBC.The way we are taking to external link.