Published on: Monday, 25 February 2013

On Friday, 1st March 2013, CIT’s Access Service, Science for Life Programme, School of Science and Informatics, and EMC are hosting a Robot Rumble in the Student Centre NEXUS. The event will feature CIT Access Office Linked schools and is a follow on from the VEX Robotics Competition which had its inaugural Irish tournament at the Discovery Festival during Science Week in City Hall last year.

The participating schools, from Cork city and county, are North Presentation, North Monastery, Deerpark CBS, Davis College Mallow, St Colemans Community College Midleton and Coláiste Pobail Naomh Mhuire, Buttevant.

VEX Robotics Competition is an international robotics competition targeted at students of all ages with an emphasis on fun and creativity while promoting the development of technical and interpersonal skills. With teams ranging from 5 to 15 students, over 50,000 students worldwide are participating in the competition this year. The Robotics Education and Competition Foundation (REC Foundation), the organiser of the VEX Robotics Competition exists to connect students, mentors, schools and colleges in every community to a variety of successful and engaging technology-based programs.

In total eight CIT Access Linked Schools participated in the competition and the teams were comprised of Junior Cycle students. Davis College, Mallow, were the victors at Discovery and as a result they now have the opportunity to travel to the USA to take their place at the international competition, which is being held in Anaheim, California in April. They hope to travel with 10 students and they are currently fundraising for the trip, the overall cost of which is approximately €12,000. Both the CIT School of Science & Science for Life and EMC have pledged bursaries to aid with the funding of this trip.

The VEX Robotics Competition has been extremely successful in promoting science and engineering and there is no doubt that it has inspired these Junior Cycle students to further their study of the STEM subjects.

CIT Access Service is committed to widening participation, increasing access and supporting positive educational outcomes for under-represented groups. For more details visit studentlife/access_disability/