Both 3rd and 4th class engaged with the STEPS Young Engineers Award from September to December 2021. The STEPS Young Engineers Award encourages 3rd and 4th class pupils and their teachers to explore the world of engineering by developing an engineering project that would help improve their local community. The children were split into groups of 5/6 members. Within their groups, they discussed problems that they thought could be fixed in our communities of Killoughteen and Newcastle West. Each group settled on one problem to focus on and went on an engineering journey before making a final prototype.
The groups in 3rd class made:
- A Smart Bowl – a dog food dispenser that can be controlled by an app on your phone. Really useful if dogs are at home and you are away for the day.
- Super Paw – electronic support dog for people with sight impairments and blindness. Run by solar panels and can be controlled by an app.
- Eco Scanner – a clothes shop scanner to scan your body measurements for clothes fittings. Run by solar panels.
- Daisy Care – health care assistant robot in hospitals. A robot that can provide patients with water and food in hospitals. Run by energy created from solar panels.
The groups in 4th class made:
- A washing machine separator – this is used to separate the white and coloured clothes within the wash. This would save water, time and electricity.
- Recycling tunnels – the tunnels are an underground recycling system connected to each house in the community. This would encourage people to recycle more, reduce fumes from bin trucks and make estates/the front of houses more appealing looking as there would be no bins out for collection.
- A solar powered electric car – this group highlighted the lack of electric car charges, especially in rural Ireland. Having a solar panel on the car roof would ensure constant charging of the car and would save the car owner time and money.
- A house cleaning robot – this would assist the elderly and disabled members of our community to live independently and keep their homes clean safely.
- A rubbish bin compactor – a device that can be put into domestic bins so that people can compact their rubbish safely, without have to climb into the bin and jump.
Conor Macken, an engineer then visited our school, and each group presented their ideas. Well done 3rd and 4th class!
