Science Spin March 2008

Rising Standards at 2008 BT Young Scientist Show

By Tony McGennis

"Golf, coffee and marijuana" may sound like features of a hedonistic Caribbean holiday, but they are in fact, some of the topics under investigation by students at this year's Young Scientist Show, reflecting the incredibly diversity of topics and subjects that students tackled this year.

I had promised a newspaper to report on projects from Donegal, and was afforded an early opportunity to do so on Wednesday of the Young Scientist week. My third year group didn't appreciate my presence, as they were busy socialising with fellow young scientists. I was also not needed by 5th year student, Sam Hall, who was very competent and confident in discussing his work. He applied Vector Theory in his study of passes in rugby and found more passes were forward than most people would imagine. His enthusiastic and informative explanations attracted the interest of rugby fans, ex-players and even the Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, herself.

As I began to peruse the 500 or so projects, I was offered a very welcome cup of coffee by three Letterkenny students. Carl Whitehead, Colm Greene and Stephen Pearson of St Eunan's College Letterkenny studied the qualities of different types of coffee grinds to try to hone in on a cup of coffee which has perfect strength and flavour. The trio were delighted to have their hard work recognised with a "Highly Commended" award.

Commitment

Ara O'Daimhin, also from Letterkenny, did his own detective work and came up with his own saliva test to detect the presence of marijuana. Ara attends Coláiste Ailigh and his was one of 14 accepted projects from the Irish-speaking school. Principal Michéal O'Giobúin is so enthusiastic about the competition, that all 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th year students enter projects. "September can be a little hectic as students search for ideas, but the benefits with regard to self-confidence, communication and research skills make it all worthwhile", he explained, adding: "It is particularly rewarding to witness past pupils returning to the school during the Christmas break to give advice and support to the finalists."

Inevitably some of the projects need last-minute touches and the intense activity just before departing for Dublin lead to this day being termed "Super Tuesday" by everyone involved. Micheal's hard work over the years was recognised this year as he won the Intel Educator of Excellence award.

Another stalwart of the system is experienced teacher, Sheila Porter who was first associated with a project in 1974. She regularly gives up days of her Christmas holidays to go back to Loreto on the Green, and is encouraged by the spirit of the pupils. "There's a good atmosphere with 50 students co-operating with each other and coming to the school voluntarily". Shiela noticed how it was becoming more and more difficult to get a project accepted for the RDS.

This year, for example, there was only space for 500 projects out of 1,400 entries. For this reason, she approached Tallaght IT a couple of years ago with the idea to run an exhibition for one day. This year these exhibitions (Scifest) will take place in many locations throughout the country from April (for more details on Scifest click here). "All projects are accepted and students do not have to travel to Dublin to display their work", Shiela explained. She is particularly keen to promote the physical sciences, and would no doubt be pleased that among this year's winning projects were studies of food detection by the slug Limax Pseudoflavus, and the physics of perforations.

Sandbags

The overall winner was Emer Jones, the first overall winner from Kerry, a student at the Presentation College, Tralee, who researched and developed emergency sandbag shelters. Emer was not only the first winner from the Kingdom, but also the youngest ever winner. She explained "I went on a visit to last year's exhibition with my family and wanted to do my own project, which may be of benefit to people and to the environment." Emer noticed that temporary sandbag shelters were often supported by barbed wire, which is often not readily available in the countries which are prone to such natural disasters as earthquakes. Emer developed and tested a solution using bamboo in place of barbed wire. The models produced by Emer were certainly stress tested - using a "shake table" and sledgehammer.

The Kerry student is looking forward to a busy year ahead: "the excitement at home has been brilliant and I'm hoping to travel to California in the summer, as well as to the European Young Scientist Finals in Copenhagen in September." The trip to California will include a visit and training to Cal-Earth, a non-profit organisation, which was an important inspiration for Emer's work. Cal-Earth was founded by architect Nader Khalili and specialises in building innovations, such as lunar base construction and housing such as emergency shelters for the world's homeless for the United Nations.

Sport

As the projects entered by my school involved the application of Maths in sport, I was interested in other projects with a sporting theme. I found projects on golf, Gaelic football, athletics, basketball, horse racing, rugby and soccer, inter alia. The height of a golf tee and how it affects the drive was looked at by Darragh Breathnach, Manus MacComhaill and Conal MacFhionnlaoich of Coláiste Ailigh. One of the St Laurence College Dublin projects demonstrated that betting trebles on soccer matches is a bad idea, and they got the cooperation of Strabane bookie, Bill Quigley. Bill was able to confirm that more money is made for the bookie on multiple bets. He related the story that when he started, an old bookie gave him the advice that "if somebody bets multiples, send a taxi for them."

St Eunan's Ciaran Greaney studied 13-a-side Gaelic football matches and concluded that this is the way to go. There were less fouls than in the standard 15-a-side game, and the enjoyment of players and spectators was increased. An interesting study from a trio from Our Lady's College, Greenhills Drogheda investigated whether tall people run faster than short people, while Eoin Colgan from Newry displayed his "smart bike".

Teachers

The range of subjects was very large at the exhibition and teachers were even a subject for investigation from two Galway cousins, Edel and Fiona Ryan. Edel told me that they surveyed 750 teachers from all parts of the country and found that teachers were under stress yet content with their lot. "88 per cent of teachers were satisfied, although 97 per cent of them were stressed. Discipline and conflict, workload, administration and dealing with parents were the most common causes of stress." Overall they noted 144 stress factors and brought the Best Group award back to Montbellew for their efforts.

Stressed and unstressed teachers were much in evidence on Friday, traditionally the busiest time for school groups to visit the RDS. It was difficult to move at times, especially near the extremely-realistic "polar bear" show. Saturday brought a lot of attention to the rugby passes project as fans dropped in on the way to the Heineken Cup game between Leinster and Toulouse. Leinster may be indebted to some of the Young Scientist competitors, as Toulouse complained that their preparations were affected by having to share a hotel with lively young scientists. Toulouse lost the game.

Vow

As the St Eunan's coffee eventually ran dry, this teacher was left with the knowledge that students are capable of great things, especially when left to their own initiative. Winners were congratulated, students vowed to meet newly-made friends again in 2009, and the Young Scientist Exhibition was over for another year.