The 2025 CanSat Ireland National Finals took place on the 1st & 2nd of May, at Emo Court, Portlaoise, Co. Laois. Six teams made it through competitive regional qualifiers to compete against each other for the coveted national title. Across two intense days of competition, a team of students from Confey Community College, Kildare, clinched victory. 

CanSat is a European Space Agency (ESA) competition for second level students in Transition Year and above, the competition is run by ESERO Ireland in association with Blackrock Castle Observatory and universities across Ireland. Each team has 4-6 students, where as part of a team they design and build their own mini satellite within the dimensions of a drinks can. The satellites are launched in a rocket to an altitude of around 300m, they are released from the rocket and descend via parachute. As the satellite descends, it transmits data to the team on the ground. Teams compete in regional finals with the best submissions selected to compete at the national finals. Over two days, teams launch their CanSats for the final time before presenting their findings to a panel of judges. 

The ESERO Ireland team from Research Ireland attended the national finals and spoke with all the students preparing their CanSats for launch. The team got some great insights from students. There was amazing work being done on wildfire prevention, with teams using their CanSats to measure key metrics such as air temperature, humidity, pressure, CO2 levels, and air quality. 

“I was interested to take part in CanSat as I want to further advance and challenge my ability to code, I felt CanSat was a good way to do this as I haven’t coded for an engineering project before”

The 2025 winning team, Confey Community College now goes to the ‘Space Engineer for a Day’ event at ESTEC in the Netherlands, organised by ESA. They will get the opportunity to present their project and meet other national winners from across Europe. Find more information on this amazing event here. 

A special mention to the other finalists from Douglas Community School, Ratoath College, Colaiste Lognaid (Galway), Ursuline College Sligo, Maynooth Community College, and Kenmare Community School, who did amazing work and created fantastic CanSat projects. 

To learn more about this wonderful competition and how to get involved visit: ESERO Ireland.