We all know that rugby is good for the economy in terms of attracting overseas teams and expenditure but at UCD last night, a variant of the game pointed towards how it might also play a role in the development of the Smart Economy.
The Siemens Robo Rugby Challenge is now in its sixth year.  It encourages first years from the UCD engineering faculty to create build and operate autonomous robots that play matches by moving a ball into scoring areas on a 2.4 metre pitch.
The competition is designed to develop the engineering students’ creativity and problem solving skills which are essential to professional engineers.
“Engineers are innovators who create new technologies that can help rebuild the Irish economy,” said Michael O’Connor, Corporate Communications Manager of Siemens. “The creators of Freeballer, Erika, K9 and the other teams have spent huge time, effort and thought designing, creating, and programming the robots.”
“Siemens has been a keen sponsor of the RoboRugby competition at UCD for six years. The sponsorship enables us to play our part in providing a platform for students to develop their creative and problem‐solving skills. The development of a smart economy is critically dependent on the supply of qualified and skilled science and technology graduates.”
“Our first year students come to us trained to recite learned answers for Leaving Cert exams,” said Brian Mulkeen, UCD School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering. The Siemens RoboRugby Competition motivates the students to start thinking inventively and independently.”
The competition was won by Freeballer who went unbeaten for his designers and programmers  Martin Cowan, John Faulkner and Conor McKiernan.  They beat Erika the Beatlebot in the final, a robot designed by Ruth Quinn, Alison Murphy and Robert O’Keeffe.  Third was K9 who did well early on but then grew ‘weary’ as the night wore on, eventually scoring as many points for the opposition as itself.  It can be a tough game.
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Sport for Business will donate €1 to Special Olympics Ireland for every genuine new sign up to the Free Daily News Digest during April
Sport for Business will make a donation to Special Olympics Ireland of 5% of the value of each new subscription paid for during April