This year, six 5th year students came together to enter the 2023/2024 CanSat regional competition. This competition is organised by the European Space Agency (ESA) where second level students design, build and test a mini satellite, known as a CanSat. This satellite must be designed to fit into the shape of a typical 330 ml soda can.
Our 5th year team took up this challenge and developed the Ratoath – Satellite Version 1 – aka, the RatSat-01. The student brought RatSat-01 to TU-Blanchardstown for the regional competition in which the satellite was tested by attaching it to a drone and flying it to gather data. The students gather temperature, pressure and acceleration data to map all the stages of the flight and analyse the data.
The group presented their findings to judges, other teams and the prospective members of the 2024/25 team to score the winning points in total across the 4 categories of judgement criteria. With a score of 249/300, Ratoath College came first in the regional competition and now move forward to the national championship in Portlaoise in May, where they will compete against Teams from around the country.
We are all very proud of the work the students have completed thus far and are delighted to see their hard work and diligence has been recognised as they move forward in the competition
