They’ve become local heroes’ – seven young Dubliners make it to Hydrogen Grand Prix world finals
Azmia Riaz - Irish Independent
The ‘Handbrakers’ represented the Cherry Orchard Youth Service in Ballyfermot and won the national finals held earlier this month
A team of young boys from Dublin’s Ballyfermot will represent the country at the world finals of the Hydrogen Grand Prix to be held in Switzerland this June.
The ‘Handbrakers’ – a team made up of seven 15 to 17-year-olds – represented the Cherry Orchard Youth Service in Ballyfermot.
Five teams from across the country participated in the national finals of the Hydrogen Grand Prix (H2GP) held at the National Arena on April 23.
In its inaugural year, the H2GP is a global racing series that encourages an interest in renewable energy among children by designing, building and racing hydrogen-powered cars.
“They’re overjoyed – they have a real sense of achievement because this is huge for them,” said youth worker Brendan Cummins
“They’ve received a little bit of fame in the area for what they’ve done, they’ve become local heroes. Now, they get to represent their area, and represent Ireland on the world stage.”
Tamir Alloush, team Hydro Mix, from Macroom Family Resource Centre
Kyal Rafter, team Handbreakers, Cherry Orchard Equine Youth Services
Ramona Szkutnik, team Mystery Machine from SHS Tullamore, Co Offaly,
Harry Maher, team Eugene, from St Mary’s CBS Portlaoise
and Savanagh Stafford, of team Ecomotion Donabate. Kickstarting the inaugural Kinia Hydrogen Grand Prix (H2GP), which took place at the National Arena. Organised by Kinia, five teams competed in a 3.5-hour endurance race, having qualified for the national finals after winning their regional H2GP Sprint race. The event was the culmination of an educational STEM programme where students designed, built and raced hydrogen-powered remote-control cars. Picture Andres Poveda
Today was a great success and we want to commend all the teams and their teachers,” said Marianne Checkley, CEO of Kinia, a Dublin-based educational organisation that organised the event.
“An incredible amount of time was put in from each team and they should all be very proud of their achievement of being involved in the first ever H2GP national final.”
The race was also supported by county councils in Westmeath, Laois, Longford and Offaly, Research Ireland, SSE and the Department of Education and Youth.
Mr Cummins added; “We work with young people aged 10 to 24 in the Cherry Orchard area – it’s a voluntary organisation, so young people choose to work with us.”
“Youth services like ours is vital to our communities. The perception of youth work is usually that we just play games but really, we’re engaging them in lots of different ways.
“There’s a community spirit, projects like this helps build future engineers, teaches them about working as a team and problem solving. We’re making them more employable.”
The team won a 3.5 hour endurance race after completing 366 laps on their hydrogen-powered car.
“Cherry Orchard has a really beautiful community and vibrant community,” said Mr Cummins.
“It gets a little bit of a negative perception sometimes because it’s a working class area. For the most part, the people here are really supportive of each other, it’s a really strong community with lot of services now that help young people.
“The young people here are just like anywhere else but these opportunities can be harder to come by. These are smart young people that we work with – what they have achieved here is next level.”
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
