Maynooth finishes second in Imagine Cup

09-07-2008

by Emmet Ryan

Team AcidRain from NUI Maynooth has claimed second spot in the embedded development category at the Imagine Cup in Paris.

The competition, which is essentially the World Cup of science, has nine categories with 200,000 students from over 100 countries battling it out for honours.

The NUI Maynooth team of Brian Byrne, Aodhan Coffey, and Karl O'Dwyer built a kit designed to make it easier to run vehicles on vegetable oil. The students and team mentor Tom Lysaght drove a car using the system from Dublin to Paris before demonstrating the technology before a panel of judges at the Novotel hotel. ENN reported on Monday that this presentation had secured the team a place in the final with a video package on AcidRain's performance.

After qualifying for the final the team made a further presentation at the hotel and another at the Louvre museum. AcidRain's second-place finish marks the second consecutive year that NUI Maynooth has reached the final of this category. Last year Maynooth's entry finished in fourth place. "It's a great honour," said Lysaght, speaking with ENN. "It's ratification of the work the students have done."

In the end, the only team standing between Maynooth and the world title was the squad from Singapore. Though Lysaght was elated with his side's performance, he acknowledged that the team had narrowly missed out on the ultimate prize. "There's a little disappointment. There was kind of an expectation that we would win. Everybody liked the project but it came down to scoresheets in the end," he said.

While AcidRain are likely to feel a little down after coming so close to winning the world title, Lysaght said the team are still delighted with a second place finish. "It'll take a while to let it sink in and for the students to realise that second place is phenomenal," he said.

There is a strong possibility that some or all of the AcidRain team will be back in the competition next year. Lysaght said he thinks it is inevitable that the team will enter the 2009 Imagine Cup, which will be held in Egypt, and try to go that one step further.

Ireland's other representatives at the competition came from Sligo IT. Team ParkIT designed a system to enable easier parking in urban centres. Despite putting on a strong showing in its presentation before the judges, the Sligo team was unable to progress to the semi-final stage of the software development competition. Video coverage of ParkIT's performance can be seen here.

The Imagine Cup is an annual competition run by Microsoft which challenges students around the world to "imagine a world where technology enables a better x for all" -- this year's theme is the environment. Entrants were asked to come up with a technology solution that helps address an environmental issue.