Douglas Community School, Cork and Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal, Blarney were today announced as the winning teams at the Munster final of the 2015 CanSat competition at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) in Cork. The winning teams will now go on to compete at the National final of the competition at Birr Castle, Co. Offaly on 18th April. Following that, the national winners will represent Ireland at the European CanSat final in Portugal in June.
This year 7 Munster schools took part in this unique space project to create a CanSat – a simulation of a real satellite which fits into the volume of a soft drinks can. The teams have been working tirelessly since October with mentors from CIT, UCC and Industry to bring their CanSat from design stage to lift off. Having selected the mission and integrated the components, teams today launched their CanSats using a quadcopter, which after release, returned to Earth safely using a parachute. As it ascended and descended, the CanSat captured data from sensors about its environment, and transmitted it wirelessly to the ground-station. The CanSat teams then analysed this data and made a presentation to a panel of judges.
Munster students have already achieved notable success in the European CanSat competition, run by the European Space Agency (ESA). In the last two years, the winners of the Irish national CanSat competition were from Colaiste an Phiarsaigh in Glanmire and Crescent College Comprehensive, Limerick, coming second and third place at the European CanSat finals in the Netherlands (2013), and Norway (2014), where their CanSats were launched by rocket to an altitude of 1km.
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Joe Connell, CIT
Notes to Editor:
The schools that took part in the Munster final were: