Offaly school successfully hosts LOETB STEAM Showcase

Banagher College was delighted to successfully host the LOETB STEAM Showcase at Banagher College last week. Over 250 students from across the nine LOETB schools in Laois and Offaly made the trip to Banagher to display the work they’d created as part of the LOETB STEAM Programme, where students compete in areas like robotics, coding, podcasting, design and filmmaking for a prize fund of €10,000.

Principal Lily Kinahan was delighted to welcome all to the big event, hosted for the first time by Banagher College. Guests on the day were treated to an exciting event, with live competitions and a showcasing of the best design and podcasting work on the big screen and stage on the day.

Banagher College students did magnificent work on the ground to make sure that the many guests had the best day possible. Everyone who arrived to see the amazing work of the various schools got the full Banagher College welcome and hospitality.

TY students were also on hand to show the impressive virtual reality school tour that they’d created as part of the LOETB STEAM Lab, an initiative that looks at the potential of Virtual Reality in our schools. They even took to the stage – and the big screen – on the day to showcase their work.

The school’s own STEAM Team did exceptionally well on the day too, with both Vex Robotics teams winning trophies, with the second-year team winning the overall Excellence award and the accompanying €1,500 prize fund. Meanwhile the brilliant youth club down by the Shannon, designed by the Minecraft Education team, were runners-up in their competition, while the ‘Pea-Pod’ podcast team made the shortlist for the podcast prize.

All those impressive performances meant that the team finished joint second in the overall league table, just behind winners, CNC Kilcormac – deserving recipients of the overall prize.

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