Feb 14th A great day for Kinsale Community School. Our 3 Vex Robot teams swept the board at the Dell organised National Vex Robotics Competition in Cork Institute of Technology. Category awards won by the teams included  

• Tournament Winner, 

• Think Award 

• Amaze Award 

• Design Award 

• Robot Coding & Driving Skills Award 

• Top Tournament Excellence Award. 

Given that the 3 teams were made up of students who were total novices at the beginning of their TY year it makes this achievement even more remarkable.  
 
We now need your help to fund the costs of bringing a group of students, teachers and the heavy robots to the World Championships in Kentucky USA in April. As in previous years we are very dependent on funding to help defray the significant costs involved. 

2020 saw the first All Girls Robot Team in KCS. After years of mixed teams we gave the girls complete autonomy by giving them the opportunities to design and build their own robot. The principal generously agreed to fund this third robot.   

Our total spend this year was far greater than previous years due to the expense of purchasing the new ‘girl’s’ robot as well as ongoing expense of spare parts for the 2 existing robots.  
 
Our teams are now set to represent Ireland at the Vex Robotics World Championship in the USA in April. This is the third year in a row that Kinsale Community School will represent Ireland in this competition. No other Irish school has ever won an award at the World Championships.  
 
KCS was proud to win the World Community Award  in 2018 and 2019. We would love to bring home a similar award this year. 
 
KCS robotics teams take Community very seriously. This year we mentored 4 teams from local primary schools as well as another team from Bandon. We bought a primary schools’ IQ (Junior) arena and field parts for this year’s games. Each week we hosted primary school teams in our school for 80 minutes when KCS robot team members helped their junior counterparts on the IQ teams.  
 
Kinsale assisted DELL with arena resets and refereeing for 3 days of primary school IQ events in CIT and also at the EDR competition. We also assisted DELL Limerick in resetting and refereeing their IQ event at the EDR event. It was said that our main team members participation made a huge difference to the scoring and referee decisions. It is important to note that the costs associated with the transport to these events were covered by both the school and parents of team members.  
 
 
Funding will help us pay for flights, accommodation and robot shipping.  School funds as well as parents’ contributions will bridge the remaining funding gap so that our participation in the World Championships can be secured. The competition will take place from April 22nd to 25th so we are against the clock to get funding secured to make the trip of a lifetime possible for our teams. Your donation no matter what it is would make a big difference to us.