DIT students have won the ESB Inter College Challenge at the Irish Management Institute in Dublin on Friday November 2nd, 2018.
Brian King, Lee Gibbons, William Tunstead and Cathal Kinirions from D.I.T took home the ESB Inter College Challenge McLoughlin Perpetual trophy with eyes now on the international prize at the ENGComm competition, in Montreal next year.
“In regards to our ambitions, we are going for the win,” King told The College View. “Ireland have performed strongly at ENGComm over the last few years and we are going to give another strong performance next year.”
The Irish leg of the competition, now in its fifth year, comprised of 44 students from 11 institutions and universities with the task to come up with a way to enable the low carbon citizen of the future.
All the teams were given eight hours to research and design a solution. After this, they presented to an expert panel of judges.
Gibbon’s put the team’s winning mentality down to the stress coping mechanism that college has built in, “performing within time constraints is something all my team members had dealt within industry and college, many weeks of the semester, multiple assignments and reports are due and the constant onslaught creates a level that is consistently resulting with the competition and nobody was stressed as we had continuously dealt with these tight time situations before.”
The DIT team’s winning concept was regarding a renewable energy solution for the agricultural sector based on a combination of solar panels, biomass and smart energy IT applications.
“As a team, we are confident in our ability to produce new and innovative ideas. That’s down to how well we work together and how much fun we have while we are working on ideas,” said Tunstead when discussing the team’s chemistry and how he believes they can go further.
The team will now head to Montreal, Canada, to represent Ireland at ENGComm 2019. Along with this, the four students will be given summer placements with ESB.
Tunstead also echoed his team members views with regard to the international stage, “we understand that there is great competition out there all over the world. At the same time, we understand as long as we put the work in, we have as good a chance as anyone.”
Queen’s University Belfest and Trinity College came second and third respectively, with their students also receiving summer placements.
Joshua Freeman
Image credit: Irish Times