Host of local projects compete at BT Young Scientist Exhibition

A total of 22 projects from local schools will participate in this year's BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition in Dublin over the coming days.

As the students finetune their projects ahead of this week's event which gets underway today (Wednesday), the Westmeath Independent spoke to students from Marist College and Moate Community School about their promising projects.

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One of two qualifying projects from Marist College, Athlone, is 'Vapes deadly effects on the human body', which is entered in the Health & Wellbeing category, by Transition Year students Isaac Jocher and Anthony Quinn from Mount Temple. Anthony said that they decided to focus on vapes as many of their friends vape.

Isaac added that there are a lot of issues with vapes. "Some of the manufacturers actually house the battery in the top and if you drop the vape it gets damaged.” He explained that battery acid is extremely toxic to human consumption and that “it's like acid being thrown at you.”

The local students also discovered that some chemicals in vapes dry out the lungs from inside out which cause the alveoli which are small air sacs in the lungs to swell. The medical term for this condition is 'popcorn lung.'

Anthony and Isaac wanted to determine if vaping was better than smoking and if it was toxic and they found that it was toxic and more harmful than smoking cigarettes and that vaping can lead to chronic health issues over the lifespan of a user.

The group spent many hours learning about vapes and their effects by searching online and learned that many of the chemicals in vapes come from poorer countries, some of which contain hemp oil.

Isaac said: “We spoke to PhD candidates and got their knowledge on it as well and then we did a survey of our fellow classmates.

“A lot of people who said that they don't vape would answer other questions as though they did, not to make assumptions or anything like that but it kind of shows that a lot of people who do vape won't outright admit it.”

Isaac said that he was surprised by how fast some of the effects indicated themselves. “You can smoke for two years and then you quit and then you're moderately fine. With vapes it takes a few years to recover.”

Anthony stated: “They're (vapes) not the way to solve cigarette problems.” Isaac and Anthony's main aim is to spread awareness of the effects of vaping.

The second project from Marist College is by Transition Year students Feidhlim Byrne, Cian Copelin and Darragh Glynn-Desmond, entitled 'Is there a better, more efficient way for individuals in wheelchairs to evacuate high rise buildings alone in the case of emergencies?'. The project is in the Technology category.

They decided to focus on this area as Feidhlim has a sister who is a wheelchair user and he was thinking about how she would evacuate a building in the case of an emergency in a multi-storey building. Feidhlim said: “We found the only way she could (evacuate a building) was with a device that needed other people to assist her.

“We thought that it wasn't right that the only way for people in wheelchairs or any disability to evacuate a building was with the help of other people.”

Feidhlim remarked that there are different courses about evacuating people during emergencies but he thought that there had to be a better way than the device on the market.

The students have designed a prototype that could be developed further to enable wheelchair users to get down a stairs by themselves.

Darragh said that they based the prototype design on other designs they found online. Feidhlim added: “We used their ideas as inspiration for a lot of our ones. We tried to better them and move them forward.” They also conducted a lot of research to make the prototype as cost effective as possible.

Feidhlim, Cian and Darragh all study Technology and were able to secure materials to produce their prototype from their teacher Mr Grogan.

Another local project competing in the Technology category at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition comes from Moate Community School Second Year students Domhnall Molloy, Kerry Sun and Terry Heffernan, and is entitled, 'Ewe Alert: A Warning Device to Notify Sheep Farmers of Dog Attacks'.

The students designed ‘EweAlert’, a system which monitors the step count of sheep. If the EweAlert detects a high step count, for example, in the case of a dog attack, it sends a text message to the farmer alerting them of the situation and reducing the loss of valuable stock. The EweAlert system includes an Accelerometer, Arduino and GSM module.

Kerry said that they chose this topic because it affects many things and poses ethical and financial problem for farmers. She comes from a farming background and said that they would like to own a dog but that they live near many sheep farms. “If a product like this did exist, I'd say there'd be a lot more dogs being owned by people like me.”

The prototype made by the group was put on a sheep to count the average steps of a sheep per minute and to ascertain how many steps was above the average and could indicate that the sheep is in danger.

Kerry said that they went to a mart and surveyed 37 different farmers and found that dog attacks were a “lot more frequent” than they thought.

She added that there is usually “a very long time between the actual attack and when it's noticed.” Most attacks are not discovered for over five hours as they usually take place in the evening or overnight.

In terms of the presentation of their project, the group has also produced a video to show farmers how to put the device on a sheep and how to take it off.

Kerry hopes to add more functions to the prototype in the future including a GPS so that if a sheep leaves a field in cases of theft or escape the farmer will be notified. “We had different experiments where we would try to test the prototype on the sheep with a harness.”

The group competed in the junior category of biological sciences last year and won third place in the competition.

Moate Community School science teacher Mairead Cusack said that students are usually inspired by whatever interests them. Ms Cusack said that 'Ewe Alert' is an “interesting project.”

“I know it's one that farmers are very interested in and they were texting and saying 'when will it be ready?' because it's a big issue particularly on farms away from the main farmhouse. It was something the farmers were very positive about anyway.”

The other projects are '5G radiation: A Help or Hindrance to Biological Processes?' by Seára Henson and Eva Fox in the Biological & Ecological category; 'Developing Ash into an Environmentally Friendly Fertiliser' by Kate Nally and Darragh Kennedy in the Biological & Ecological category; 'Lead busters: Harnessing Woodlice for water cleanup in developing countries' by Cíoná Lawless, Lauren Fox and Niamh Heduvan, in the Biological & Ecological category; 'Banana Bandages: A Sustainable Approach to Wound Care' by Rachel Hamm and Ella Ryan in the Health & Wellbeing category; 'BioGuard: A Sustainable Weedkiller for the Future' by Leah Winters, Millie O’Donovan and Lilly Daly in the Biological & Ecological category; 'Fowl Play: Investigating the Effectiveness of Improved Husbandry and Diet at Reducing the Bacterial Contamination of Eggs' by Sibéal Egan and Doireann Naughten, Health & Wellbeing category, and 'Optimising Hydroponics for Use in Developing Countries' by Laura Fox, Lucy Keane and Niamh Noone, Biological & Ecological category.

There are five entries from Athlone Community College. TY students Maebh Noone, Naoise Kiveney and Sadhbh Kilcommons are studying how biodiversity effects in a monoculture forest vs a native forest; TY students Abby O'Callaghan and Ava O'Connor are investigating the difference in effect of laboratory generated chemical vs natural tablets on the removal of cyanobacteria, by constructing an ecosystem. This is entered in the Biological & Ecological category; Fifth Year student Sean Sibindi's project looking at psycho-acoustics and their applications in psychiatric conditioning is in the Social & Behavioural Sciences category and Fifth Year student Kayleigh McNamara has entitled her project in the Health & Wellbeing Category "Giving forgotten girls a voice: How Successful is the HSE at treating girls with endometriosis?". The project by Second Year student Srindhi Karthil seeks to reduce bias in AI and is entered in the Technology category

Four projects will represent Coláiste Chiaráín in the competition; Grace Meares and Saoirse Nolan's project entitled, 'Are you sheep or a lone wolf?', Social & Behavioural Sciences; Sean Canny's project entitled 'Safe Seat' proposes the idea of having a monitor attached to the baby seat in the car and is in the Technology category; Aristide Selve's project entitled 'Digital Duality - Is AI a blessing or a plague?' investigates the risks and benefits of Artificial Intelligence for humanity, and is in the Social & Behavioural Sciences category, and, in the Technology category, Ella Nally, Sarah Fogarty and Aoife Shanahan's project called 'Fabulous Fodder' proposes the use of a special device that will make farming more sustainable.

In Our Lady’s Bower, 2nd year students - Bláthín Moran, AnnaMarie Mullan and Aideen Derwin are competing in the Junior Category with their project titled “Mould Control Trigger” which focuses on building a sensor and research based on the factors that affect mould growth.

Transition year students Michelle Hughes and Muireann Lambe who are competing in the Intermediate Technology Category with their project titled “Move Over Biodegradable - Let’s Talk Edible” which focuses on replacing the polythene used to make silage with an edible alternative. The students hope to reduce farmers’ reliance on non-biodegradable plastic while at the same time reducing methane gas emissions from beef farms by including seaweed extract in their silage cover recipe

Ballymahon Vocational School represented with one project led by transition year students Grace Cassells, Keira Hopkins and Lára Flood. Their project is entitled 'Are cow collars worth the hype?', Technology category, Group project.

The exhibition takes place in the RDS in Dublin from today (Wednesday) until Saturday, January 13.

A version of this article is published in today's print edition of the Westmeath Independent.