The First Global Challenge Robotics Competition

Confey Students Representing Ireland In Singapore at The First Global Challenge
Robotics Competition.
On Wednesday the 6th of September, a group of students from Confey Community College
who’re representing Ireland at the 2023 First Global Challenge visited the Deputy Secretary
General to the president George Bourke, and the president’s wife Sabina Higgins at Áras an
Uachtaráin to give a presentation on the competition and their project for this year’s entry. The
group of students from Confey College were Joel Joseph Rajesh, Sophia Shah, Smrithi
Santhosh, Ryan Lacey, Ben McCormack, Pranav Vasedeva, Kushal Jadar,
The students were invited to Aras an Uachtarain as they are preparing to represent Ireland in
The First Global Challenge is an international, Olympic-style robotics competition that over 190
countries from all over the world partake in every year. The competition this year is being held in
Singapore. Ms Selkirk the teacher supporting the students in this competition said ‘these are a
group of students who have shown tremendous teamwork and research skills in preparing to
represent Ireland in Singapore. They have excelled in math, physics, communication skill in
their endeavour to prepare for the competition” They had a great opportunity to showcase their
work in Aras An Uachtarain and show the development of their skills through their robotics work.
The competition requires teams to design and build a robot that completes different tasks and
navigates its way around a game field. Each year’s competition takes a different theme which is
based on one of the 14 grand engineering challenges of the world and inspires the tasks that
the robot must complete. This year’s theme, “Hydrogen Horizons”, focuses on energy and
hydrogen, therefore teams must build a robot that simulates the process of electrolysis on the
game field.
Teams are then offered the chance to compete in a secondary challenge known as the “New
Tech Experience” or the “NTE”. This part of the competition encourages students to innovate
solutions to problems that relate to the theme using resources that are unique to or abundant in
their country.
This year’s Irish team have created a system that sustainably harnesses and stores wave
energy as the country’s positioning along the Atlantic Ocean means that there is great potential
to use waves as a renewable energy resource. The team hope that their system can help
Ireland reach its climate action goals and deal with the ongoing climate crisis.
The competition also places a huge emphasis on the promotion of STEM throughout the nation
and the youth by asking teams to complete different social media challenges. For example, the
students demonstrated their robots to a group of 30 girls aged 5 to 12 ,and to a robotics summer
camp of children aged 8 to 10 to educate them on the possibilities that STEM could provide for
their futures as part of 1 of the challenges. They then visited Áras an Uachtaráin to raise
awareness about STEM on a more national level, again as part of 1 of the challenges.
The team would like to give a huge thank you to their sponsors, particularly Intel and The
Naughton Foundation as none of this would be possible without them. Mr O’Byrne Principal of
Confey College wished the students every success in the competition and thanked past
students Pavel Zelinski and Eoghan Craven Grace for their assistance with the Robotics team.
Mr O’Byrne also thanked Ms Selkirk for her tremendous work with the team and also added a
special word of thanks to the parents of the students who have given their support to the
Robotics Team.
The team were in Singapore from 4th – 10th of October. They did amazingly well but did not win
the outright competition. The experience of taking part in the event was an experience which will
stay with the students forever. They also say the expertise from other countries and the
involvement of corporate support for STEM based competitions.
If you’d like to get in touch about how you can help them on their journey, please contact them
here:
fgcteamireland@gmail.com
Photo 1. Mrs Sabina O’Higgins and Smrithi Santhosh

Joel Joseph Rajesh
Sophia Shah
Smrithi Santhosh
Ryan Lacey
Ben McCormack
Pranav Vasedeva
Kushal Jadar