Science Spin March 2009

Fairy tale ending to Young Scientist Exhibition

By Tony McGennis

John and Liam's project stood out from the others, as far as ease of application to industry is concerned. One judge commented: "John and Liam are both farmers' sons from Cork and were concerned with the monetary losses incurred if milk sold from their farms had high somatic cell content. Systemic somatic cells reflect mammary gland infection which downgrades the processability of the milk during cheese making.

Current tests for somatic cells are expensive and slow. After research, the boys discovered that if a small amount of detergent is mixed with a fresh sample of milk, the milk becomes progressively more viscous as the somatic cell content rises. With this knowledge in mind they developed a simple apparatus that could be used by a farmer to quickly test the milk and determine its status. This will be of tremendous commercial help to farmers and is a marketable product. Thus, what they have achieved is utterly practical and brilliant in its simplicity." It was significant that, in addition to the main prize, the pair also scooped the Patents Office prize for their innovative work.

Mathematics

It is not just projects with immediate practical application which are successful at the exhibition. Individual winner Andrei Triffo, of Synge Street CBS studied the "Infinite Sums of Zeta Functions and Other Series". An example of an infinite series is 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 +1/8 + 1/16 + ... Here the series is infinite with each term being half the last, but the sum is not infinite (it's very close to 2). Zeta functions are an infinite series of powers, while the most used Dirichlet Series are those of the form
∑ 1/nª,
where a is a complex number.

Andrei's teacher at the famous Dublin school, Jim Cooke, has mentored several successful Young Scientist projects, including overall winners in 2004 (Ronan Larkin - 'Generalised Continued Fractions') and in 2007 (Abdul Abubakar, who was rewarded for his work on RSA encryption, which uses a public and private key to encrypt data sent, inter alia, over the Internet). Cooke was also the mentor of this year's Intermediate group prize winners in the Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Science category - Gary Carr, Darragh Moriarty and Graham McGrath for "Efficient Numerical Tests of Robin's Reformulation of the Riemann Hypothesis". This year marks the end of an era for the Young Scientist Exhibition and for Synge Street CBS as Cooke retires after coaching budding mathematicians and scientists since 1971.

Northern entries

There was a noticeable increase in entries from the North, with groups from Down, Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh among the prizes. Alex Atwood, Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, was conspicuous by his presence, as Southern politicians seemed not to be as thick on the ground as previous years. He was quite interested in a project which featured cooperation of schools on both sides of the border. Students from St Laurence College, Loughlinstown, South Dublin, examined the question of whether postcodes should be used in the Republic.

Their experiments included sending around 200 letters to helpful teachers and pupils from schools in Lisnaskea, Derry, Coleraine, Downpatrick and Belfast, to see if those containing postcodes arrived quicker. They didn't. The group later found out from a tour of the Dublin's huge mail sorting centre (DMC), in Clondalkin, that the technology used in the postal system already can read printed or hand-written addresses right down to the level of one postman's route.

Rugby

It was interesting to see projects which were a variation of ones from the same or different schools from last year's exhibition, or from the various SciFest competitions around the country in spring 2009. Recently, there were several projects on rugby (examining forward passes and how to randomise line-out calls, for example). This year Newtown School in Waterford developed a system and equipment for improving line-out throws. Part of the project involved producing a device similar to a basketball stand, but with the hoop attached vertically rather than horizontally. School teams performed measurably better after incorporating the system into their training regime.

Colleges

Students could contact experts from industry and academia via the website www.btyoungscientist.ie for opinions and assistance with their research. Others got help directly from universities and third-level colleges in carrying out their experiments. Letterkenny IT, for example, made their facilities available to students from the local Loreto Convent, Letterkenny, who wanted to quantify the bacterial presence in various everyday objects. The time and effort spent learning how to use the sophisticated equipment in the IT was worth it as a prize was won by the team measuring bacteria in tea towels.

Cutbacks

There was a worry that the exhibition could be severely affected by the education cutbacks which came into effect as the displays were being prepared. Unlike other years, supervision cover was not provided by the Department of Education and Science for teachers. Although the number attending was slightly down on the Thursday, most schools managed without having to cancel visits or projects through the cooperation of principals, deputy-principals, other school staff and parents. And the excitement and energy of the competition was as powerful as ever. While the economic situation may be getting worse, there is hope for the future when the innovation and creativity of the young scientists is witnessed. And the recession will be the furthest thing from the minds of at least two boys from Cork, who can look forward to reaping the profits of their 'cash cow'.