The ESB Inter-Colleges Challenge is a fast paced event that aims to test a full range of engineering, financial and team working skills. The event is designed to encourage teams to apply their knowledge to develop innovative, creative and commercially focused solutions to real life challenges.
This was WIT’s first time entering the ESB Colleges Challenge Competition. The team was made up of Derek English – Team Captain (BEng (Hon.) in Electrical Engineering) Lee Wei Xing and Brendan Ryan (BEng (Hon.) in Sustainable Energy Engineering) and Denise Gaule (Higher Certificate in Building Services Engineering). The students received training in preparation for the competition from Lecturers David Williams, Colm Tynan and Derek Kelly all of the School of Engineering at SETU.
The multi-disciplinary engineering challenge took place this year over 2 long days in the Irish Management Institute in Sandyford Dublin, on the final day (Friday) each team was required to present their final proposal to the judging panel. The panel was made up this year of 3 members of Senior Management at ESB from the areas of Engineering, Finance and Customer Service.
The SETU team fought off stiff competition from UCD, TCD, DCU, NUIG, DIT and CIT but finished agonisingly just one point behind winners University of Limerick to finish in second place. Each of the SETU team members will be offered the opportunity to take up their work placement at ESB as part of their prize and they also received an IPad each, UL will now travel to Canada in march to compete in the World Event, the SETU team can be very proud of their performance in this their very first year taking part in the Competition.
The weekend just kept getting better for team member Denise Gaule who returned to Dublin on Saturday night, as a member of the Kilkenny All Ireland winning Camogie Team to receive an All Star and Player of the year award at the All Star Awards Night which was held in City West Hotel.