VEX Robotics is continuing to grow and has developed into a popular aspect of the KCS Transition Year Programme. This year 34 students gained a place out of 70 applicants. This year's students are the first cohort who did IT as a Junior Certificate short course, where they learnt coding skills that are very applicable to coding in VEX robotics.  Most were influenced by the success of the 2 previous years’ teams which won the Irish Nationals and went on to win awards at the World Championships in Kentucky, USA.  

As well as the main Secondary School Competition, our students also mentored local primary schools in the VEX IQ Primary Schools Competition. We mentor local teams from Scoil Naomh Eltin, Gaelscoil Chionn tSáile and Bandon Gael Scoil. TY students also helped DELL run 3 days of primary school competitions in CIT in January. Our students were commended by Dell and CIT for their diligence and enthusiasm in helping the competition days run smoothly and especially calmly assisting teams with technical issues.

The first Regional Heats for the Munster Secondary Schools competition took place in CIT on Monday 20th January. 22 teams from around Munster competed in theses knockout stages which would qualify them to play the Irish finals on the 14th February. KCS entered their 3 robots, an increase on last year.

Prizes won on the way included Overall Skills Award including performance in autonomous and driver skills. The girls’ team won the prestigious Excellence Award for their overall performance, design and outstanding Engineering Notebook.

Out of a total of 8 qualifying teams all of our 3 teams  qualified for the Irish finals on Feb 13th the prize of which is a place in the VEX World Championships in the USA in April. 

Congratulations to all the students involved as they have worked very hard to get this far and thank you to their teachers Niamh Hay and Eddie Farren for all the extra hours and hard work they have put into making all of this possible.