Banana skins, Pythagorian triplets, clean water, and Rio Ferdinand’s hand
By Aideen O’Flaherty
SOME of the brightest students in South Dublin County got to show off their scientific finesse at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in the RDS last week.
The projects from students in the county covered studies as diverse as attitudes towards compulsory religious education, how hand length can indicate footballing ability and how banana peel can be used to create low-cost and environmentally-friendly nylon production.
Shane Curran, a 5th year student in Terenure College, was crowned overall winner at the exhibition for his “qCrypt” project, which developed a way of encrypting data and spreading the data across multiple jurisdictions, to keep the data safe from legal or illegal access.
The students also rubbed shoulders with some famous faces including footballer Rio Ferdinand and President Michael D. Higgins.
Precious Daramola, a 3rd year student in Pobalscoil Iosolde in Palmerstown, developed a project with her classmate Halima Usman that involved finding out if hand length can be an indicator of footballing ability.
The two students got to test out this theory by measuring Rio Ferdinand’s hands live on TV.
Precious said that herself and Halima “were nearly crying when we were told we would be measuring his hands,” and that Rio’s hands did in fact match up to their research findings.
The budding scientist described being at the exhibition as an “amazing experience”, and said that being there reminded her that science can be “anything you want it to be”.
Luke Coulton Dillon, a 5th year student in Old Bawn Community School in Tallaght, carried out research to assess Irish attitudes towards compulsory religious education.
Speaking to The Echo, Luke said: “I did a literature review and case study on whether studying religious education had a positive impact on employment.”
When describing the findings of his research, Luke said: “Irish people have a negative attitude towards religious education”, adding that while he knew religious education wasn’t popular he didn’t realise it was unpopular to that extent.
Luke described the opening ceremony of BT Young Scientist as “brilliant”, and said he now hopes to study theoretical physics when he finishes school.
Haritha Olaganathan, a 2nd year student in Adamstown Community College, scooped the second prize in the junior chemical, physical and mathematical sciences category and was also awarded the Eli-Lilly Award for her project on using banana skins to develop eco-friendly nylon.
Daire Byrne, from Coláiste Pádraig in Lucan, placed second in the senior chemical, physical and mathematical sciences category for his project on determining Pythagorean triplets.
Molly Measey, a student from Colaiste Iosolde in Palmerstown, displayed a project about natural economical and environmental insecticide for use in third world countries.
Students from Coláiste Bride in Clondalkin displayed a project entitled My Cancer Cell, while students from Adamstown Community College did a study on the potential for access to clean drinking water in schools to provide well-being to students.
Coláiste Pádraig held the flag high for Lucan, displaying projects on the effect of temperature and viscosity on sonluminescence, detecting sports injuries as they happen using an Arduino-based monitoring system and also a project about anagramic squares.
Our Lady’s in Templeogue looked at pens and portion size in two separate studies, one study was a quantitative study of portion size in Irish takeaway restaurants, while other students developed a multi-functional pen for the exhibition.
