Tallaght’s Erica Redmond takes over Google.ie for the day with her doodle

By Mary Dennehy

A HAPPY robot called Tom secured a €10,000 technology grant for Scoil Carmel junior school in Firhouse, after his creator Erica Redmond was crowned the overall winner of this year’s Doodle 4 Google competition.

Erica, who is six-years-old, beat off stiff competition from more than 4,000 students nationwide to win the competition, which this year asked entrants to design a doodle under the theme of, ‘If I could create anything it would be…’.

The junior infant created a doodle called My Happy Robot Tom, which netted the top prize of a €5,000 scholarship toward’s Erica’s third level studies, a personal chromebook and one for her teacher Ms Lea and a €10,000 technology grant for Scoil Carmel.

Talking about her design, Erica said: “I designed a happy robot called Tom to help with my chores and be my friend.
“Tom is always happy and loves to play games with me.

“I gave him multi-coloured legs because I love rainbows.

“I used all the letters from Google as parts of my robot, the G’s are ears, the O’s are eyes and the L and E are my robots power switches connected with curly cables.”

Erica was announced as this year’s winner at the grand final ceremony in Google’s EMEA headquarters in Dublin on Monday, April 3 – with her doodle set to be viewed by millions of visitors to the Google Ireland homepage this Friday, April 7.

Speaking at the ceremony, Fionnuala Meehan, VP and head of Google Ireland, said that she looked forward to seeing the impact of the technology grant on the Firhouse school.

Scoil Carmel principal Ursula Martin told The Echo: “Everyone in Scoil Carmel, Firhouse, is absolutely delighted with Erica’s win in Doodle for Google.

“We introduce our pupils to technology at an early age and have a number of tablets in the school.

“This win will give us the opportunity to expand and develop this area and will enable more pupils to become proficient in their use.

“It’s a fantastic achievement for Erica as a Senior Infant.

“She certainly has a bright future ahead of her and we congratulate her and Teresa Lea her teacher”.

A number of other local schools performed well in the creative competition, with a student from Gaelscoil na Giuise, Oisín Ó Máirtín Ó Duílearga (6), being shortlisted by judges while Yuting Chen (14) from Santa Maria in Rathfarnham won her group category.

Check out Erica’s Doodle 4 Google on Google.ie HERE