RDS Primary Science Fair

5th and 6th Class are very busy at the moment working on their project for the Primary Science Fair, which will be exhibited in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick on January 19th.

A number of entries were submitted to the RDS by 5th and 6th, and Kaitlynn and Ellen's project title 'Will Robots be the Future of Farming?' was chosen to go through to the fair.

Over the last number of weeks we have obtained information from the companies which supply robot machines to farms in Ireland.  Kaitlynn and Ellen then compiled surveys which were given to fifty farmers to obtain data on experience and attitudes to robot involvement in farming.

The most exciting part of the project so far has been the two field trips we have taken to see robot milking machines in action.  Last week all of 5th and 6th class went to Moorepark to see one and we would like to thank them very much for this visit.

This Monday, we went to visit local farmers Claire and Seamus Kearney and saw another robot milking machine working.  We obtained so much information on this trip and as well as seeing the milking machine we saw the layout of the farm, the graze way gates, the information being gathered by the robot as the cow was being milked and how the computer compiles all of the information over a long period of time.  It was so interesting to see the overall picture of how a robot milking machine works on a farm. We would like to thank Claire and Seamus so much for giving us their time and giving us so much information for our project.

The hard work is really beginning now as we must go through all of the surveys to see the data results and compile all of the information gathered from research and field trips into a project for exhibition in January!  Of course our project must also answer the all-important question - will robots be the future of farming?