Michael O’Donnell Memorial Fund
2010 Winning Projects Selected
Students to benefit from innovative approach to engineering education
Two projects that take highly innovative approaches to engineering education have been selected by DIT Foundation and the College of Engineering and Built Environment for funding from the Michael O’Donnell Memorial Fund. The DRIVE Project will involve DIT engineering students designing and building motorised Go-Karts while the Voluntary Mathematics Tuition Programme will see students tutoring local secondary school pupils. The projects will receive combined funding of €10,000 from the Michael O’Donnell Memorial Fund.
According to Dr Mike Murphy, Dean of the College of Engineering and Built Environment, the winning projects will allow students to improve both their engineering and personal skills. ”Both involve inventive, engaging and practical ideas that will allow students to develop attributes essential for engineers such as design, analysis and problem solving while working in groups to the deliver the projects that will promote the importance of effective team-work and communications skills.”
Students involved in the DRIVE Project, will be designing, constructing and testing components for use in motorised Go-Karts. The aim is to introduce group and project based engineering teaching practices that will expose undergraduate students to a formal conceive-design-manufacture-process. The Voluntary Mathematics Tuition Programme will see DIT engineering students providing free one-to-one mathematics tuition to pupils in post-primary schools in north inner –city Dublin, while at the same time honing their own mathematics capabilities as they will be continually revisiting and explaining maths topics.
About the Fund
The Michael O’Donnell Memorial Fund was launched in 2007 to support engineering teaching and research activities at DIT and the development of engineering facilities at the new DIT campus at Grangegorman. The fund was established following a substantial legacy from the estate of the late Michael O’Donnell, former principal of Bolton Street College of Technology and the first acting President of DIT. In addition, a number of DIT graduates have made donations to the Fund which is managed by DIT Foundation, a registered charity that promotes and supports the development of DIT. For further information call Siobhan on 01-4023425.
