Creative Drumcondra students win competition  

STUDENTS at a Northside secondary school were celebrating after winning a competition recently.

Rosmini Community College, Drumcondra, won the Leinster Final of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) LEGO League (FLL), held in conjunction with DCU and Learnit. Secondary students using lego to build and design robots showed off their skills and creativity at the event in DCU.

Rosmini’s winning team, HydrOHeads, with the support of Learnit, will represent Leinster in the UK & Ireland finals in Bristol on February 24.

Learnit works in partnership with the DCU-LEGO Education Innovation Studio and with support from Science Foundation Ireland, with the aim of increasing Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) awareness in young people. 

Seven teams from Dublin and Wicklow schools competed, having spent the past four months designing, building and programming an automated robot from scratch, using LEGO Mindstorms ®, to take on a number of challenges in the Robot Game.

Teams also had to develop a research project around this year's competition theme, which is hydro-dynamics, finding ways to improve how people find, transport, use or dispose of the world’s precious water resource.

The FLL is an international competition involving students age 11 to 16 from 80 countries. Irish education specialists, Learnit, have brought the FIRST LEGO League to schools in Leinster and Munster in recent years.

Diarmuid McNamara, from Rosmini Community School, said the competition is incredibly beneficial for students, engaging them in mechanical design and construction, programming, problem-solving, research and teamwork. 

“As an engineering teacher I strive to get the students more interested in all the practical aspects of the subject,” said Nr McNamara.   

“This project gives students, who may never have thought about a career in STEM, an insight as to what it might look like.  

“Some of our students taking part have taken time this year to visit college open days to find out more about engineering, computer science and coding. Previously they might never have considered STEM in further education.”