Ballinrobe primary school to fly the Irish flag in Dallas

ST Joseph’s NS in Ballinrobe are set to fly the Irish flag at the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas next week.

A team of talented students from the school have received sponsorship of €15,000 from Thermo King, a global manufacturer of refrigeration units.

St Joseph’s made headlines when they became the first team from Connacht to win the National VEX IQ finals, where they clinched the Design and Teamwork Challenge awards.

On Sunday, their team of budding robotic engineers will travel to America to compete against the best and brightest from across the world. They will be the sole Irish representatives at the competition.

Using their combined knowhow of coding and robotics, the St Joseph’s students built an impressive robot which won them regional and All-Ireland titles.

Their All-Ireland win was delivered by a robot called Generation 6, which was tasked with picking up and dispatching as many square cubes as possible within a given period of time. 

Throughout their robotics journey, the children of St Joseph’s have received widespread support from the local community through sponsorship and fundraising initiatives.

Thermo King, who employ over 700 people in their factory in Galway, have sponsored the team from St Joseph’s for the past three years.

Speaking at a presentation ceremony alongside Thermo King representatives, the students attributed their success to teamwork and everyone working towards the one goal.

St Joseph’s NS Principal, Dymphna Culhane, described the children as ‘a credit’ to their school.

“They are working very much as a team,” Ms Culhane told The Mayo News.

“There’s programmers, there’s coders, there’s designers, there’s people who fix the machines when it goes wrong. The development, design and R&D, so it’s like a little mini business. One of the greatest things they’ve learned from it is group work and teamwork and how to work alongside each other.”

Gail Quinn, Thermo King’s Human Resources Leader for Ireland, described their participation in the VEX Robotics World Championships as ‘a big deal’.

“When we started looking at trying to bring VEX Robotics into the west region, we depended on schools like this,” she said.

“You were one of the first schools to come on board with VEX when we started off a few years ago and your hard work has really paid off. For us, we are so proud to see a rural school in a rural community from the west of Ireland be on that ultimate stage.”

Ms Quinn said that the children’s knowledge of coding would open up potential careers in engineering and manufacturing.

“Judging by your presentation, I think we could take them on in the morning,” she added.

Ms Quinn paid tribute to the students and the teachers for the work they put into the project and wished the school good luck in the world championships.

Colm Mitchell, Operations Manager with Thermo King, said that the children taking part in the competition had ‘bright futures’ ahead of them.

St Joseph’s NS will be competing at the VEX Robotics World Championship in Dallas, Texas, USA, from May 1-3.

The event will be streamed live on https://recf.org/vex-robotics-world-championship/