Lego Robotics Semi-Final

Posted on March 26, 2025 by knockanean

On the 21^st of March, four pupils from Colm’s fifth class attended Limerick Racecourse for the Lego Robotics Munster Semi-Final. These four pupils were Feidhlim, Mia, Orla and Rían. We arrived at around nine in the morning and we found our table. There were forty schools attending the semi-final on the day. Our first task was to construct a vehicle out of a lego set and instructions that they gave us. We had a few hours to build it and programme it to move. We spent an hour figuring out the instructions and then we had a lunch break. We went back to work after this and finished off the vehicle. While we were constructing, judges came to our table to look at our poster that was called ‘How can we help the ocean with technology and humans?’ We had completed this project in class before the semi-final. We explained our poster and we had a slide-show presentation showing the robot turtle that we had made to help the sea. Our idea was to send the robot turtle to the bottom of the ocean to collect rubbish and to clean the water.

The judges seemed to really like our project, and we received full marks on it. After about three hours of constructing and coding, our vehicle was complete. The judges told us to stop working and then the challenge part of the competition started. This was when we had to put our vehicle on the track and test out whether we had coded it properly. Our vehicle made one wrong turn in our first go, but we re-coded it and it flew through the track the next time. After this, we waited to see the results of the competition. We were so amazed when we heard that Knockanean had received the highest points and that we would be progressing to the next stage of the competition which is on the 5^th of April in Analog Devices in Limerick. Overall it was a great day out and we had so much fun building and coding!

By Feidhlim Sullivan and Mia Hedigan.

Credit Union Quiz!

Posted on February 17, 2025 by knockanean

On Friday the 7th of February a junior quiz team and a senior quiz team from the school travelled to the Inn at Dromoland for the Credit Union Schools Quiz competition. The senior team was made up of Abi, Aoife, Eve and James. The junior team was made up of Ciara, Katelyn, Oisín, and Adam. We arrived at around half five and found our tables for our teams. Colm came with us on the night and our families came along too to support us. They gave us mentos before the quiz began to get our brains going! There were twelve rounds in the quiz in total, and six questions per round. The questions were about a lot of topics, some about sport and a lot of general knowledge ones also. We noticed that the questions became more challenging as the rounds went on!

At the halfway point, they showed us the scores, the senior team from our school was in first place and the junior team from our school was in second place! We knew at this point that we had a great shot. Then the next stage got underway and at the end of the quiz we found out that our senior team placed 6^th overall and our junior team placed 4^th overall. Clare hurler Tony Kelly presented the awards to the winning teams on the night. We were very proud of our performances and it was a great opportunity to practice our quizzing skills.

By Abi O’Donnell and Aoife Kirrane.

Hurling Champions Visit

Posted on October 1, 2024 by knockanean

On Monday the 30^th of September, Clare hurlers Cian Galvin and Davy Conroy came to the school to celebrate their victory in winning the All Ireland Hurling Championship this summer. They arrived at around 10 o’clock in the morning. We all gathered outside at the back of the school with our chairs. After a few minutes, we saw them coming and we gave them a big cheer when they arrived! Mr. Curran introduced them and they started talking about their victory. People then started asking them questions about their lives as hurlers. Some of the questions were ‘When did you start playing hurling?’ or ‘When did you play your first match?’ One person also asked what hurley they used when they won the final! Cian used a Clancy hurley and Davy used a Torpey hurley.

We spent a few more minutes asking them questions and then Mr. Curran told us about a challenge that Cian used to try to achieve when he was a pupil in Knockanean N.S. The challenge was to try to hit the ball from left to right, against the wall of the school, and to catch it again, and to see how many times he could do this in 30 seconds. When he was younger, his record was 17 times. Cian then tried to beat this challenge on the day and he got 25 so he beat his record! There was also another challenge where they had to hit the middle pole in the school shed. Both Davy and Cian tried this challenge as well on the day and were able to hit it once! After these challenges, we lined up in our class groups and took photos with the Liam McCarthy cup. We also got the chance to hold the very heavy cup! After that, we got signatures from Davy and Cian. Some people got their jerseys signed and some even got their shoes signed! It was great to get to see the hurlers in person and to hear about their busy lives and all the training that they have to do. We enjoyed the day and our favourite part was getting to lift the Liam McCarthy!

By Alex O’Donnell, Finn O’Dwyer and Dara O’Connor.