DCU's new state-of-the-art facility
New state-of-the-art Polaris building opens
DCU’s new Polaris building is now officially open and home to some of the most sophisticated facilities including a High Performance Lab focused on high performance sports research, a Life Lab to help students develop improved health literacy, and a Movement Lab that will use state-of-the-art indoor sport facilities to help the local community access data analytics and visualisation techniques.
Polaris is designed as an immersive eco-system that actively breaks down boundaries, sparking collaboration across subjects and between groups, inside and outside the university. Active learning spaces like the planned Industry Robotics Lab and Immersive Visualisation Suite will help students collaborate with industry and peers from around the world, while on-site STEM outreach programmes will help local students explore STEM options at third level.
An Immersive Visualisation Suite is one of the key learning spaces in Polaris. Its VR equipment creates a virtual space where students can collaborate on projects with other students across the globe, or learn from industry experts in a virtual environment.
The building covers 10,000 square metres, has an A Energy Rating, and is designed to be a Net Zero Energy building. It uses heat pump technology and has 300 square metres of PV solar panels on the roof.
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Students gather around the challenge map
FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge SUBMERGED℠ Hackathon
DCU hosted the FIRST® LEGO® League Hackathon on 4–5 October, where 13 teams from the Faculties of Engineering and Computing and Science and Health, alongside the DCU Institute of Education, built and battled with LEGO® robots. The event, organised by the DCU Faculty of Engineering and Computing in partnership with the DCU Engineering Society and CreativeHUT and supported by AWS InCommunities and Engineers Ireland, saw team ‘Six Shades of Brown’ take overall honours under the leadership of second-year Computer Science student Gabriel Ross Lugares, excelling across Innovation Project, Robot Design, Robot Game, and Core Values.
Other teams also shone, with ‘Team Aquanauts’ scoring 220 points in the SUBMERGED® Robot Game, while The Fumblers, Team Catalyst, and Team Synergy Squad received awards for their Core Values, Innovation Project, and best Robot Design respectively. The hackathon, part of the FIRST® LEGO® League—a competition that encourages children to think like scientists and engineers—challenged both 11–16-year-olds and university students to design innovative, real-world solutions addressing underwater challenges, with support from the Science Foundation Ireland Discover Programme, the IET, and local partners.
Read the full story here
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Sponsors unveiled for DCU Solar Racing
DCU Solar Racing
DCU Solar Racing is a pioneering student-led organisation within Dublin City University, dedicated to Engineers Ireland’s first-ever solar racing car. With a diverse team of approximately 40 students from various disciplines, they are united by a common goal: to push the boundaries of solar-powered vehicle technology and demonstrate the incredible potential of renewable energy in transportation.
The team have designed and built a car that they want to enter into the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge. The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is the world’s greatest innovation and engineering challenge playing a key role in exploring green technology, energy efficiency, and mobility possibilities.
Primarily a design competition, this biennial event seeks to inspire some of the brightest young people on the planet to address the imperatives of sustainable transport and the development of energy efficient vehicles as part of the global challenge to decarbonise mobility. The event features three classes that represent the diversity of energy efficient vehicles and their differing design philosophies.
Discover more about the team here
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Ireland's offshore wind energy potential
Ireland's wind energy potential
New research by Dr James G. Carton, Assistant Professor in Sustainable Energy at DCU, and Bill Duggan, Research Assistant at DCU, highlights Ireland’s need to develop ports to capitalise on its vast offshore wind potential. Their study, published in the Irish Examiner, explains that Ireland’s wind resource is divided into fixed-bottom installations—a mature technology—and floating installations, which are still emerging. While countries like France, Norway, and Spain are advancing floating offshore wind projects, Ireland faces significant challenges.
Due to these challenges, the research suggests that Ireland may not roll out floating offshore wind developments in the Atlantic until at least 2030. Although there are promising opportunities in the Irish and Celtic Seas, the country lacks the necessary port infrastructure, with potential sites including Foynes, Bantry, and Bremore, while Rosslare does not offer the required depth. Additionally, the port requirements differ for floating turbines compared to fixed-bottom turbines, which begin with installing foundations such as monopiles or gravity-based structures.
Read the full story here
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Fidelity launch renewed partnership with DCU
Fidelity and DCU launch new partnership
Fidelity Investments Ireland and Dublin City University have launched a new four-year collaboration aimed at addressing the persistent underrepresentation of women in STEM. Working alongside DCU’s Faculty of Engineering and Computing, DCU Sport, and the DCU Access Programme, the initiative will provide a range of scholarships and support to encourage young women from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and maths.
The Fidelity Investments Ireland Women in STEM Fund will award scholarships to women from socio-economically disadvantaged communities, support female student athletes, and introduce a new scholarship for women studying for a BSc in Computing at DCU. Additionally, Fidelity Investments Ireland will take part in a series of initiatives, including the ComputeTY outreach programme, mentoring and career visioning sessions, Engineers Week events, and a Women in STEM prize for final-year students, all designed to promote STEM courses and career pathways.
Find out more here
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Dublin's e-bike experience
Improving Dublin's E-Bike Experience
Dr Mingming Liu from the DCU School of Electronic Engineering and his team have published several papers on a project aimed at enhancing the user experience of shared e-bikes in Dublin. The project began with the creation of an open dataset, specifically collected in Dublin to accurately model the energy usage of these bikes—a significant improvement over the more generalised data used in previous studies. The researchers further developed a smart parking recommendation system to assist users in parking safely and ensuring easy access to bikes throughout the city.
Their research discovered that up to 12.9% of shared e-bike users failed to park at designated stands due to inadequate planning and distribution, which in turn reduced the service's overall efficiency. In response, Dr Liu’s team created Upark, a smart parking system that integrates historical journey data with real-time trip trajectories to predict both user destinations and the availability of nearby parking spaces, thereby offering accurate and personalised parking suggestions.
Read the full paper here
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Live-stream shown to students in Polaris
DCU Students Gain First-Hand Surgical Exposure
Students from DCU’s Biomedical Engineering programme, alongside peers from the School of Health and Human Performance, experienced a live-streamed surgical procedure from the UPMC Sports Surgery Clinic in the new state-of-the-art Biomedical Engineering Lab at the Polaris building. The surgery was led by Prof Brian Devitt, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at UPMC SSC and Chair of Orthopaedics and Surgical Biomechanics at DCU, offering students the chance to observe the procedure in real time and engage directly with the surgeons and medical teams.
The event was organised by Dr Tanya Levingstone, Dr Owen Clarkin, and Keith Hickey from the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, together with Dr Sinead O’Keefe from the School of Health and Human Performance. This immersive experience provided valuable clinical exposure, giving students clear insights into the practicalities of the clinical environment and inspiring their future careers.
Read the full story here
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Dr Eadoain Carthy, Assistant Professor in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Dr Eadaoin Carthy interview on RTE's "Today with Claire Byrne"
Dr Eadaoin Carthy talked on RTE’s “Today with Claire Byrne” show about perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals”, and how they pose a significant threat to water sources globally, including in Ireland. These synthetic compounds, known for their durability and resistance to degradation, have been extensively used in various industrial and consumer products since the mid-20th century. Despite their utility, PFAS's persistence in the environment raises concerns about their long-term impact on health and ecosystems.
Studies have detected PFAS in water bodies, soil, air, plants, and wildlife across Europe, particularly in areas with industrial activity such as manufacturing plants and military bases. Exposure to PFAS has been linked to adverse health effects, including hormonal disruption, compromised immunity, and reproductive issues. The widespread presence of PFAS in the environment underscores the urgent need for regulation and mitigation strategies to protect public health and the ecosystem.
Efforts to address the PFAS contamination crisis are underway at both the European and national levels. The European Commission has proposed prohibiting the production and use of PFAS chemicals, with ongoing assessments of the proposal's potential impacts. Additionally, regulatory measures such as restricting PFAS in potable water and firefighting foams are being considered in the United States and various EU member states. The push for stricter regulations and the classification of PFAS as a grouped chemical class signals a growing recognition of the need to minimise exposure and prevent further contamination of water sources.
To listen to the full interview click here
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