Hats off to high-scoring students who underlined IT Sligo’s stature as a launch pad for the next generation of innovative engineers during ‘Engineers Week 2013’, organised by Engineers Ireland.
Matched against 15 submissions from 10 other colleges and universities, the IT Sligo team was just pipped at the post in the prestigious “Third Level Challenge”, sponsored by Mainstream Renewable Power.
The IT Sligo Engineering team comprised: Neville Farrell – Computing: Frank Ngenzi – Civil Engineering; Liam Sweeney – Civil Engineering; Niall Costello – Civil Engineering; Simon Mitchell – Civil Engineering; Timur Sipilins – Civil Engineering; Louise Flynn – Environmental Engineering; Robert Phillips – Environmental Engineering; Roisin Mc Manus – Environmental Engineering; Daniel Ryan – Industrial Design; John McDonagh – Industrial Design; Lorcan Martin – Industrial Design; Padraig O’Dowd – Industrial Design.
Teams were asked to come up with ideas for ensuring Ireland’s future economic competitiveness. In particular, under the heading ‘Sustainable Cloud – Ireland’s Opportunity’, they had to devise proposals about how the nation should harness its natural advantages and the infrastructure required to attract companies to locate their data centres here.
In the end, only one point separated IT Sligo from the winning team – UCC “Energy 4 Life” In third place was UCC “Gaussian”, fourth was IT Carlow and joint fifth were Athlone IT and NUI Maynooth.
The 13 IT Sligo representatives ranged from 1st year Level 7 to final year Level 8 undergraduates in civil, industrial and environmental engineering, as well as computing and industrial design.
Dr Tomas O Flaherty, joint co-ordinator of Engineers Week at IT Sligo, said: “This was IT Sligo’s first major participation in Engineers Week and it proved to be a marvellous shop window for the students’ abilities in multi-disciplinary team working and innovative thinking.
“They had just four hours in which to research, correlate, plan and translate their ideas into a cohesive and imaginative PowerPoint presentation. In fact, IT Sligo came out with top marks in the Presentation sub-category of the competition.
“The team demonstrated the vibrancy of the IoT sector in Engineering and, in particular, IT Sligo’s expertise in the discipline.”
Photo Caption: Staff with some of the IT Sligo team who came a close runner-up in the ‘Third Level Challenge’ during Engineers Week 2013. Left to right are Dr. Tomas O’Flaherty (Lecturer, Department of Civil Engineering & Construction): Shane Fanning (Head of School of Engineering & Design): Anthony Skeffington, Chairman Northwest Branch of Engineers Ireland) , Padraig O’Dowd (Creative Design), Daniel Ryan (Creative Design), Timur Shiplin (Civil Engineering), Frank Ngenzi (Civil Engineering), Neville Farrell (Computing) Niall Costello (Civil Engineering), John McDonagh (Creative Design) and Lorcan Martin (Creative Design).