PUPILS from 15 primary schools across the Mid West were fully charged and full of spark at the eighth annual MIC Dell VEX Robotics programme, hosted by Dell Technologies Limerick.
In partnership with Mary Immaculate College (MIC), the VEX IQ regional final provides a platform for primary school children to showcase their skills in designing, building, and coding robots.
During the final, robots from the different schools competed in robot skills and teamwork challenges, working collaboratively to score points.
Five schools from the Mid West took home awards from the final, with Kilcornan National School scooping an impressive three awards including the Excellence Award, the Robot Skills Champion, and were joint winners in Teamwork Champion Award with Gaelscoil an Ráithín.
Kilruane National School were presented with the Design Award, while Scoil Mhuire Pallaskenry scooped the Judges Award, and Thomond Primary finished the day with the Innovate Award.
From September to December, staff from Dell and MIC support and mentor pupils and teachers in the classroom and organise practice sessions with their robots. MIC also delivers a robotics summer course for teachers, developing the teachers’ understanding, skills, and confidence in embedding robotics into the primary curriculum.
With the support of their teachers, pupils managed the entire project from start to finish, acquiring invaluable technical skills in robotics, engineering, design, programming, and coding.
They practice and become familiar with many technical skills like robotics, engineering, design, programming and coding. The teams also organise promotional and fundraising campaigns for robot parts, thus building skills and knowledge in areas such as teamwork, marketing and financial planning, ensuring that every child in the class has a role in the project.
Classes could also opt to compete in an online Science, Technology, Engineering and Technology (STEM) Research Challenge under this year’s theme: The Ethics of Robotics.
The qualifying teams from the regional competition will advance to the national VEX IQ finals on February 27 in Cork, with world finals taking place in Dallas in May 2025.
The Dell Technologies VEX Robotics Competition is a long-standing collaboration between Dell and MIC, recognised with The Teaching Council’s Collaboration Award in 2019 and recently shortlisted at the end of 2024 for the Limerick Regional Business Awards in the Best Contribution to the Community (CSR) category.
