At ICS Tech Week 2016 was Dynamic Racing-St Eunan’s College, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal; who won the award for Best Portfolio at the Tech Week F1 in schools final at the RDS on the 28th of April 2016. Picture Conor McCabe. More information contact Philip Jones, MKC Communications on 01 7038614 / philip@mkc.ie
St Eunan’s College, Letterkenny have scooped a top award at the Tech Week 2016 F1 in schools competition.
Competing against 20 other schools, Dynamic Racing won the award for Best Portfolio at the National Finals held in the RDS.
The competition which involved racing on a 20-metre track, with model cars reaching scale speeds of up to 350km/h was hotly contested by some truly innovative designs.
The F1 in Schools challenge is not all about speed, competing teams are also judged on the quality of their engineering, graphic design, resource management, portfolio, media skills, handling of sponsorship and verbal presentation of their work.
The competition inspires students to use IT to learn about physics, aerodynamics, design, manufacture, branding, graphics, sponsorship, marketing, leadership, teamwork, media skills and financial strategy, and apply them in a practical, imaginative, and exciting way.
Organised by the Irish Computer Society, Tech Week 2016 involved over 90,000 primary and post-primary pupils all over Ireland in a huge range of fun activities.
It is sponsored by Science Foundation Ireland and Salesforce.org and supported by Google, Puca and Institute of Physics in Ireland.
Tech Week provides hands-on opportunities to learn about how computing and related technology are shaping every area of life.
The aim is to stimulate thinking around future opportunities for study and careers in technology, through learning in the wider areas of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects.
Jim Friars, CEO, Irish Computer Society said, “It is absolutely fantastic that so many students participated in Tech Week 2016.
“We hope that they learned a lot during the week, gained confidence in their ability to make technology a part of their future and of course we hope they had lots of fun”.
“The current generation of children and teens are ‘digital natives’ but instead of just using technology it’s important for them to understand that it can enable and enrich their lives through their own productivity and creativity.
“Tech Week is a fun festival of technology with a serious ambition. Ireland needs over 45,000 skilled new ICT professionals by 2018 to fuel the continuing growth of our economy.
“We want young people and parents to understand the opportunity that exists and to figure out if technology is for them at an early stage. They can then choose the right subjects and make college decisions on an informed basis around all that technology has to offer.”
Tech Week 2016 aimed to encourage female students in particular to explore technology. Currently less than 20% of computing students are female which is truly surprising as the tech sector is full of equal opportunities.
Tech Week 2016 has created a series of videos of technology industry participants which can be accessed through www.techweek.ie
During Tech Week, the RDS was the venue for super events and competition finals on 28th of April including the F1 in Schools finals (pupils use 3D CAD to design and race model F1 cars), the BizFactor entrepreneurial finals for primary schools, Scratch Coding Finals and a myriad of gadgets, gizmos, talks and technology.
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