A team of seven young people from the Moyne Ulster-Scots Association in Donegal were crowned overall champions at this weekend's FIRST® LEGO® League Ireland Final. The Cully Coders - Zoe, Rebecca and Abby McElhinney, Georgia Green, Jonathan and Andrew Morrow, and Sienna Deana- are coached by Adele and Scott McElhinney. This is their second year competing in the global life-skills, robotics competition. They qualified for the Ireland Final having taken top prize at the Galway Regional with their LEGO® SPIKE Prime Robot named “Olly” and their innovation project focused on bringing light to the darkest ocean zones using glow in the dark bottles.

Their prototype is made of Epsom salts mixed with glow in the dark paint and funnelled into repurposed plastic bottles. This solution took inspiration from the female anglerfish who uses bioluminescence to attract its prey. They scored the highest points in the Robot Game competition this season and took home both the Robot Game Award with a high score of 540 points and they also won the Knockout Round at the tournament.

They were joined on the winner's podium by the Mounthawk Masterminds from Mercy Secondary School Mounthawk (Tralee, Co. Kerry) who took the Runner's Up prize.

The annual tournament theme this year is SUBMERGED℠, and among the fun challenges

are robot games and an oceanic research project, as young participants use LEGO®

technology to bring fresh ideas to the surface and ‘sea’ into the future!

273 teams of young engineers around Ireland contested FIRST® LEGO® League

SUBMERGED tournaments since last September. 'Cully Coders will take their place representing Ireland at an international tournament.'

Event sponsorship for the hands-on robotics and problem-solving programme is provided by Meta.

FIRST® LEGO® League Ireland is supported by the Research Ireland Discover Programme and delivered by CreativeHUT Ireland. The programme also benefits from national sponsorship by Amazon.

For Information: TARA GILLEECE

Gilleece Communications

T: +353 87 2392721

E: Tara@gilleececommunications.ie

Visit fll.ie to discover more about the range of FIRST® LEGO® League programmes,

and how to get involved and contact Ross Maguire: ross@creative-hut.ie or 01 5240004.

ABOUT FIRST® LEGO® LEAGUE

FIRST is an acronym for ‘For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology,’ and

FIRST® LEGO® League inspires young people through three programme levels —

Discover, Explore and Challenge — tailored to different age groups, so young people can

develop a broad range of practical and soft skills over time. FIRST® LEGO® League

participation is suitable from early years learning to Transition Year students, with robot

games and activities suited to each level.

If you would like to get invovled in FLL or what to know more? Speak to our STEAM Team now.