Almost 1,800 students take part in South Dublin's Engineers Week events

11/03/2020

Archived item. This item is published here for historical reasons. The information below may be out of date.

12th year of Engineers Week in the County.

Last week, almost 1,800 students from primary and secondary schools across South Dublin County took part in a variety of events for Engineers Week 2020. The events were held by a number of local organisations in order to celebrate the world of engineering. 

2020 was the 12th year of Engineers Week in South Dublin County. The week aims to promote engineering to primary and secondary school students through locally organised events, challenges, lectures and activities. In 2020, the week ran from 1 – 8 March.

The Opening Ceremony on Monday 2 March, hosted by the President of TU Dublin Professor David FitzPatrick, welcomed industry influencers such as Caroline Spillane, Director General of Engineers Ireland, Sean Keating CEO of Vilicom, Michael Gallagher Engineers Ireland Third Level Engagement, Eileen Lee Operations Manager of PM Group Dublin Office, and Caitriona Lambert, Senior Executive Engineer SDCC, to talk to the students about their journey and experience within their sector. The keynote speech, on future developments in vehicle technology and associated careers in Engineering, was delivered by Orla Murphy, Engineering Quality Transformation Manager, Jaguar-Land Rover. PM Group’s Eileen Lee and Old Bawn Community School’s Principal Ursula McCabe confirmed a bursary of €50,000 given by PM Group to the Old Bawn school to encourage students to take up STEM subjects.

Each day throughout the week, a number of events took place across the county, organised and hosted by five partner organisations: TU Dublin – Tallaght Campus, South Dublin County Council, PM Group, Xilinx and Vilicom. Primary school pupils enjoyed “hands-on” learning activities, such as how a football stadium is constructed, how bridges are built and how engineers design and assemble everything from skyscrapers to robots. TU Dublin - Tallaght Campus also hosted a ‘Women in Engineering’ seminar with female students from Kings Hospital Palmerstown. This seminar gave students a chance to interact with women engineers from various diverse industries.

PM Group, in conjunction with Dublin’s Energy Agency Codema, held a lecture at Rua Red Arts Centre on Data Centre design and construction and how Data Centres are helping to introduce District Heating projects into South Dublin County.

In addition, a prize draw was held for all participating schools after the event had concluded. The prize was three Curiosity Boxes, each of which are engineering activity packs for use by a class of 30 primary school students. The winning schools were:

St Kevin's Boys NS, Kilnamanagh

St Andrew’s NS, Lucan

St. Lorcan's Boys NS, Fortunestown

South Dublin County Council hosted ten primary school classes at County Library, Tallaght for K’Nex Workshops and invited a further 770 primary school children to three engineering adventure roadshows at Tallaght Stadium.

Ends:

Image 1 - Launch of Engineers Week in TU Dublin Tallaght with Professor David FitzPatrick, President TU Dublin

Image 2- Scoil Maelruain @ Having Fun with Engineering

Image 3 - Electronic Engineer John Fox & Scoil Maelruain SNS Making Cards using Electrical Circuits

Image 4 - Sacred Heart SNS Killinarden with Teacher Bernadette McCarthy – Having Fun with Engineering.

About South Dublin County Council

South Dublin County Council is one of four local authority areas in the Dublin region.

The Council provides and funds a broad range of services including housing, roads, walking and cycling routes, parks and playgrounds, libraries, sports facilities, litter control, arts centres, enterprise units, fire services, community infrastructure and financial support. It also serves as a platform for local democracy with 40 councillors spread across seven electoral areas.

Bounded by the River Liffey to the North and the Dublin Mountains to the South, the County lies 16 kilometres south-west of Dublin city centre and has an administrative footprint of 223sq. kilometres. The County has nine main villages Clondalkin, Lucan, Palmerstown, Rathfarnham, Tallaght, Templeogue, Saggart, Rathcoole and Newcastle and is bounded by adjoining counties of Wicklow, Kildare, Dublin City, Fingal and Dún Laoghaire

Images

• 
  Image 1
• 
  Image 2
• 
  Image 3
• 
  Image 4