Six teams from local schools in Limerick and Clare contested the Regional Final of CanSat at LIT on March 27th. The sun shone as the CanSats were carried up by drone and then released at the Moylish sports pitches. After an intense morning of launches and presentations, the winners were announced: Cloud9 from Colaiste Mhuire, Ennis, who will now represent the Region at the national final in Portlaoise on May 2nd and 3rd. The LIT Regional Final is sponsored by Arralis and the LIT mentors are David Sims and Marie Walsh.
CanSat is a European Space Agency competition for 2nd Level Students (Transition Year and upwards) run by ESERO Ireland in association with CIT Blackrock Castle Observatory and Institutes of Technology. Each CanSat student team is composed of up to six secondary school students aged between 14 and 19 years, assisted by a teacher or tutor. Similar to what happens in a real-life space programme, the teams are tasked with developing their small ‘satellite’ project (the CanSat) and asked to submit Progress Reports to experts, who will then send their feedback and assess if the CanSats are flight-worthy upon arrival at the launch campaign. During the launch campaign, the teams launch and operate their CanSats, analyse the data collected, and present their results to a jury who will then assign the prizes for each scoring category. They also have to show that they have developed communication and outreach skills during the project.
Liam Kenny from Arralis presenting to the winning team from Colaiste Mhuire. Also pictured Alan Giltinan and Rob O'Sullivan from Blackrock Castle Observatory.