SIXTH CLASS students from CBS Primary in Ennis have the potential to become the next Elon Musk, elected members of the Ennis Municipal District have said.
Not alone were Mariia Hurina, Lucas O’Callaghan, Ericson Achoral, Cullain Leyden, Rayan Oukbil, Antos Rog and Hasan Jahanjir the first Clare students to take part in a robotics world championship in the United States of America but they returned with silverware, winning the Build Award.
A place in the VEX Robotics World Championship was secured after they picked up the Excellence Award at the All-Ireland VEX Robotics competition. Last year was CBS’ first time reaching the national final, the school has been engaged with VEX Robotics as part of their robotics and coding programme for the past three years.
To compete against the best in the world and in the absence of financial support from the Department of Education, a fundraising campaign was launched and the sum of €25,000 was met with elected members of the Ennis MD and local businesses rowing in to get the primary school students on the plane to St. Louis, Missouri for their four-day trip. Students sold Toy Show goodie bags in CBS Primary to assist in the campaign.
For what was Cllr Mary Howard’s (FG) final meeting as Mayor of the Ennis MD, she organised for the successful students to brief elected members and the executive on their memorable trip to Missouri. “We’re hugely proud of what you have done. Don’t forget us when you become really successful. Well done to each and everyone one of you,” she said when welcoming them to Áras Contae an Chláir.
She told them they were “wonderful ambassadors” for the town and county and that she “couldn’t think of a better way for having my last meeting. Ye all have incredible potential, ye can be whatever ye want to be”.
Digital literacy teacher, Donna Lyttle played a central role in the success of the students with sixth class teacher Colm Davoren from Carron an encouraging figure throughout.
Ms Lyttle introduced the students to the vitreox system when they were in fifth class. Huey was the first robot they made, the default hero bot and he was used in regional competitions. Students admitted that they later realised Huey was “not as efficient” as he needed to be which led to them building the 180 Mech.
As part of their preparation, students worked with the robot for forty five minutes before school and during all of their big lunch, “we did that for most days and some people had time to go in to school on weekends and do more,” they outlined during the briefing.
After running trials in each class in the school whereby eighty pupils expressed an interest, Mariia, Antos and Cullain were chosen as the final drivers. In the competition, the students had three attempts to code the robot to try get as many points as possible in sixty seconds.
Leaving Ennis at 02:30, the CBS contingent flew from Dublin Airport and headed to St Louis Convention Centre to ensure their robot was working to its optimum level prior to the competition. They stayed aware of their Clare links and visited the Irish Association of Music which is ran by Ruan woman Emer Arkins. During their time in the US, they also visited the City Museum, the Arch and claimed the spoils in the final day of the competition. “Going to America for the VEX Robotics World Championships was a great experience, we learned so much and met so many people, for some of us it was our first time going to America,” the students recalled.
Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy (FF) commended the students as “brilliant young future leaders for Ireland” while Cllr Antoinette Baker Bashua (FF) commended them for inspiring fellow pupils. “Congratulations to everyone, we have a lot of robots in Clare County Council but they are human,” remarked Cllr Pat Daly (FF).
Application of the students was hailed by Cllr Tommy Guilfoyle (SF), “ye are blowing our minds away with what ye are coding, there is coding and mathematics involved but there is also building”. Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) stated, “I am blown away by this, we didn’t have this kind of stuff in school in my day, it is fantastic, it has blown my mind”.
Praising the “great achievement,” Cllr Tom O’Callaghan (FF) outlined, “it is not everyone that can say they are representing the country, credit has to be given to the teachers but more importantly the Mams and Dads, I will say, it is wonderful to watch, ye are certainly confident, I’ve no doubt in my mind you will be successful in what you do. We possibly have the next Elon Musk from Ireland right here”.
When asked what they would like to be when they finish school, Lucas commented, ““I’m really good at lots of different things. I’m very smart, athletic, fast and strong, I could be anything”. Ericson said he would like to be a programmer but was mindful of the impact of AI, Cullain pinpointed accountancy as his preferred line of work, Rayan expressed his wish to be an engineer working in code programming. Engineering and technology is the field of work that Antos has his eye on whole Hassan revealed his intention to become an astronomer and Mariia said she is torn between becoming a professional soccer player, a lawyer or an engineer.
