Termin8tors: Dylan Whelan, Cian Roche, Emmet Geoghegan, Daniel Geoghegan, Kevin McAndrews, Micheal McAndrews, Pearse Geoghegan, Eoin O'Reilly and Darragh Coughlan, after their Irish LEGO League win in January
Termin8tors, a team of nine young brothers and friends from Moycullen Robotics Club in Co Galway, are representing Ireland this week in the 2012 FIRST LEGO League Open European Championship that’s taking place in Mannheim in Germany.
In all, 67 young teams from more than 35 countries around the globe are competing with each other to show off their robotic skills around food safety. The theme of this year’s competition is robotic innovations that tackle the issue of food contamination.
As for Termin8tors, the team of techno brothers and friends range in age from nine to 14. Hailing from Moycullen in Co Galway, the Termin8tors won the overall prize at the Irish FIRST LEGO League Challenge back in January after they created a smartphone app called Food Safety Buddy, as well as a robot.
In Germany, the Irish team members will be presenting their app, which aims to help the user shop, store and prepare food safely. They will also be showing off their robot in the finals.
Since they won the Irish finals in January, the Termin8tors have been tweaking their app, plus chefs Darina Allen and Ross Lewis have also supplied recipes for the final product.
Declan McAndrews, a father of two of the members who also mentors the team, said the Termin8tors have been spending every waking moment practising for the European challenge.
“They have made many improvements to the robot, making it even faster and more reliable,” he said.
SAP is sponsoring the Irish team during its mission in Germany.
The overall winner of the LEGO science and technology competition will be announced on 9 June.
