St Eunans College from Letterkenny got a top prize for marketing and sponsorship.
Fusion F1 of St. Eunan's College, Letterkenny have scooped a top prize at the Tech Week 2015 F1 in schools competition.
Competing against 23 other schools, Fusion F1 won the award for Best Team Sponsorship and Marketing.
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 2015 involved over 90,000 primary and post-primary pupils all over Ireland in a huge range of fun activities. It is supported by the SFI Discover programme and tech industry sponsors including Salesforce, Google, Lero and Púca.
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, “We are delighted that so many students took part in Tech Week. We hope that they learned a lot during the week, and gained confidence in their ability to make technology a part of their future.”
“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. 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. 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 2015 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 2015 has created a series of videos of technology industry participants which can be accessed through www.techweek.ie
During Tech Week, Dublin Castle was the venue for super events and finals on 29th and 30th April including the F1 in Schools finals (pupils use CAD to design and race model F1 cars), National Young Tech Entrepreneur finals, Scratch Coding Finals and a myriad of gadgets, gizmos, talks and technology.