CBS students win robotics award at Creative TechFest

STUDENTS from St Mary’s Academy CBS Carlow won a robotics and a sustainability award at a national creative technology week held recently.

The school won both the robotics award and the sustainable technologies award, while also receiving a nomination in the creative technology category at Kinia’s annual Creative TechFest.

For the robotics award, the St Mary’s team transformed a standard workshop bench into an interactive robotic playing field, while for the sustainable technologies award, the students created a sustainable and environmentally focused self-powered, automated garage, designed to protect vehicles in extreme weather conditions.

Kinia’s Creative TechFest is an annual showcase of young digital innovators, designed to celebrate projects in creative technology, smart energy, robotics and more.

There were over 1,000 young people from across the country involved in the festival, which was held over two days in the Explorium in Sandyford.

Kinia is an education-focused, non-profit and social enterprise, which is dedicated to reducing educational inequality by building digital skills and access to technology career pathways for young people across Ireland. To date, over 400,000 young people have benefited from Kinia’s work, supporting over 3,000 schools and youth centres.

“We are delighted to have won the robotics and sustainable technologies award. It’s a just reward for the work the students have put in,” said Pat Brennan, technology teacher at St Mary’s.

“The achievement highlights the students’ commitment to innovation and sustainability, as well as the school’s strong emphasis on STEM education,” he added.

Speaking during the programme of events, Marianne Checkley, CEO of Kinia, said: “Huge congratulations to St Mary’s Academy CBS, led by Pat Brennan, for their awards. It is great to see when students combine their own personal passion, in this case soccer and wrestling, into their project and this is a great example of combining sustainability, engineering skills and real-world application.”