What a fabulous two days we had on 28 & 29 April at Emo Court and Killeshin Hotel, Portlaoise.

Team Skeld from Coláiste Iognáid SJ from Galway took the grand prize at the CanSat Ireland National Final 2022, beating teams from St Joseph’s CBS, Drogheda, Summerhill Community College, Sligo and Regina Mundi College Cork.  The victory marks the end of an intense competition that began in September 2021.  All participants in this year’s competition have performed admirably qualifying at regional competitions in at the Technological Universities in Athlone, Cork and Dublin.  The standard of competition incorporating scientific literacy and technical achievement as well as professional competencies on display has been truly impressive.

Thanks to our friends from Discover Space UK for providing  the rockets in Emo Court which launched the teams’ CanSats which all deployed and landed safely for recovery.  Teams then made presentations on their CanSat journey and their primary and secondary missions and the data that their Satellites collected to a team of judges and their peers.

Sincere thanks to our judges on the day,  Marie Walsh from TUS (Limerick), John E Ward (Réaltra Space Systems Engineering), Patrick Lynch (AMD and MIDAS Ireland) and Stephanie O’Neill (ESERO Ireland).

The CanSat Ireland competition is sponsored by AMD and MIDAS Ireland and support the national winners in their journey to the European Competition.

Team Skeld will travel to Bologna in Italy for the European CanSat Competition managed by the European Space Agency where they will represent Ireland and compete against the national winners from across Europe.  We wish them the best of luck!

The following specialist awards were also presented:

Special Award for best team Communication: Summerhill College, Sligo
Special Award for best Teamwork: Regina Mundi College, Cork
Special Award for Technical Achievement: St Joseph’s CBS, Drogheda