DkIT Helps Award Winning Young Engineers

Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) are delighted to report that a team from St. Oliver’s National School Drogheda came second in the final of the prestigious Engineers Ireland Young Engineers Award.

This national competition encourages 3rd and 4th class pupils and their teachers to explore the world of engineering by developing an engineering project that would help improve their local community. Gareth Kelly, lecturer in DkIT in Civil and Environmental Engineering, supported 3^rd class in St. Oliver's to help them take part in this exciting competition. The students, with Gareth’s help designed products that could make the world a better place. As a team they devised the product, refined the design and then built a prototype.

All the students from Ms McQuillan’s 3^rd class received certificates for their innovative projects, but the team of Finn Lynch, Matthew Black, George Kerr Kiernan, Oran Morris, Adam Flanagan Kilroy and Jake Regan were announced as runners up in the national competition. Entries from all over the country were judged by a team of professional engineers who picked this team’s idea for a solar powered train to be one of the winners. The winning team called themselves The Super Solar Pals, and entering this competition along with their classmates enabled them to learn all about how engineers work to improve our world and make it a better place to live in.

This initiative in conjunction with Engineers Ireland is just one of the many outreach programs where DKIT staff share their time and knowledge to help students in both primary and secondary school learn more about the important work carried out by STEM professionals who have graduated from the Institute.

If you are a teacher and would like to organise a visit from an engineer you can contact [email protected], or for science activities check out our new science outreach hub at www.dkit.ie/science-outreach