30Nov16   Glanmire Community College announced as winners of the inaugral CEIA App-development competition.

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Teams of Transition Year students from schools across Cork presented their Apps to judges as part of the final of the CEIA’s App development programme – SySTEM. Based on the logic of George Boole, SySTEM required teams of students to develop an App for a game incorporating the true and false values of Boolean logic. Following careful deliberation, the CEIA – Cork’s technology network – today (Thursday) announced Glanmire Community College from as overall winner for their app ‘Are you codding me?’.

The App created by Glanmire Community College, ‘Are You Codding Me?’, is an educational reflex game that teaches the user about the dangers of overfishing in Ireland. The game has 5 different fish species that resemble endangered fish in Ireland. If the user catches an endangered fish, they receive a negative score – but if they catch a common fish they receive a positive score.

Colasite an Chraiobhin, Fermoy took home an award for best functionality for their App ‘SkyClimb’, while Colaiste an Chroi Naofa, Carraig Na Bhfear ‘PebbleBlast’ won best marketing plan. Students from St Brogans College in Bandon took home the award for best design for their App ‘Paddy’s Panic Run’.

CEIA provided training workshops for participating teachers and students over the course of the programme on Programming, Design, project management and presentation skills, as well as individual team mentors from companies including Johnson Controls, CIX, Horner APG, Cork Training Centre, CIT Boston Scientific and Tyndall National Institute. Each industry mentor provided their team with support and industry knowledge from the beginning of the App development programme, right up to the competition final.

“This is the first year of the programme so we are absolutely thrilled with the level of interest we have had from schools and teachers – but also from industry. We would like to sincerely thank our incredible industry mentors for devoting their time and energy to the programme over the past 12 weeks. We would also like to thank our judges – Brian English, Head of Software Development, Robiac Technologies; Michelle Donovan, Chief Operations Officer at Voxtake; Harry Moran, 17-year old tech entrepreneur and Dr Hugh Smiddy, Head of Business Development at Tyndall National Institute, for their time and dedication to the programme,” said Valerie Cowman, Skills and Education Chair of the CEIA.

“Coding has never been so important and we think that SySTEM is a fantastic and innovative way of showcasing IT, STEM and engineering as exciting and interesting career options to the next generation. Due to the phenomenal success of the programme, we hope to expand it even further next year to include even more schools,” she added.