On Thursday May 1st 2008, Lifetime Lab hosted 60 teams from schools all  over Cork City and County who competed for the honour of representing Cork at the K’NEX Challenge National finals in Dublin in June. Finbarr O’Mahony and Samuel Caplice from St. Patrick’s Boy National School and Rian O’Leary and Jacob Ammann from Cork School Project National School in Cork have been crowned Cork winners of the Engineers Ireland STEPS to engineering K’NEX Regional Challenge.

This year the challenge was to design and build a digital camera from KNEX kits. John Power, Chartered Engineer and Director General of Engineers Ireland said: “Congratulations to Finbarr, Samuel, Rian and Jacob - we wish them well in the national finals.  The STEPS to engineering K’NEX challenge is a fantastic opportunity for young people to experience first hand how creative and interesting engineering is.  The standard of entry of the K’NEX models that was seen in Cork was very high and this is just one of 21 Regional Finals that will take place before the final in the Helix in June.”

Shane Callanan, Jakob Amman, Rian O'Leary and Ian O'Sullivan.

This year’s K’NEX Challenge has taken place in 750 primary schools and involved 22,000 primary school pupils from across the country.  Each team of two children competed against the clock using their imagination, creativity and skill to plan, design and construct an engineering model.  The pupils worked under the theme, ‘celebrating the past, creating the future’, with the educational construction toy, K’NEX.  The Cork Final was officiated by judges Billy Horgan, Cork County Council, Neil Hollow, Michael Punch and Partners, and Shane O’Callanan, Excelsys Technology Ltd. The ultimate winners will be crowned Junior Engineers for Ireland.

The competition is a joint initiative between STEPS to engineering, Engineers Ireland and Hasbro who manufacture K’NEX. The STEPS to Engineering K’NEX Challenge helps encourage young people to consider entering the engineering profession which is crucial as Ireland pushes to become one of the world’s Top 5 economies, as targeted by Engineers Ireland and the Irish Academy of Engineering in their joint report ‘Engineering a Knowledge Island 2020’.

Billy Horgan, Samuel Caplice, Finbarr O'Mahony and Neil Hollow.

Margie McCarthy, STEPS to engineering Manager said: “The STEPS to engineering K’NEX challenge is a fantastic opportunity for young pupils to dip their toes into the wonderful and exciting world of engineering. The competition makes engineering fun and opens up young people’s eyes to how engineering plays a part in everything around them from roller coasters to buildings to their mobile phones and many more exciting new technologies.”

For more information on the K’NEX challenge visit www.steps.ie/Knex.htm