Limerick students achieve third place at CanSat competition in Norway

A team of secondary school students from Limerick City have won third place at a European Space Agency competition in Norway.

The Crescent College Comprehensive team joined students from 14 countries across Europe in the competition to build a CanSat – a simulation of a real satellite integrated within the volume of a soft drinks can – which was then launched by rocket to a height of 1km.

The test for teams was to include all the major subsystems found in a satellite, such as power, sensors and a communication system.

At launch stage this week, the primary mission was to measure temperature and air pressure and transmit the data to the ground station (a laptop).

As a secondary mission, Crescent College Comprehensive chose to measure water vapour as well as installing an ultrasonic detector to detect objects in space and a magnetometer to detect changes in the earth’s magnetic field.

The team beat five other Irish teams to win the 2014 ESERO Ireland – CEIA CanSat national final at Birr Castle, Co Offaly last September.

“The CanSat competition requires students to work collaboratively to develop a complex device using advanced science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) skills,” said Stephanie O’Neill, ESERO Ireland Manager, Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).

“Fostering these skills at second-level and offering students the chance to experience real-life Stem applications in the context of an exciting space project shows them the potential opportunities that exist in STEM careers, and indeed, in the Irish and international space sector.”

CanSat is a joint collaboration between ESERO Ireland (European Space Education Resource Office) and Cork Electronics Industry Association (CEIA.ie); and is co-funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and SFI Discover programme.