SciFest awards for St Caimin’s student

ST Caimin’s Community School, Shannon student Aláine Ní Laoi was celebrating on the double at this year’s SciFest 2014 in Limerick Institute of Technology, when she not alone won her category prize but scooped the top accolade with her project.
Aláine won the intermediate/senior physical sciences category of SciFest 2014 with her project ‘A Study Into Flight Strategy Efficiency In Raptors’. The six adjudicators voted her project as best overall project in the competition.
The aim of Aláine’s entry was to devise a comparative model of different species of raptors. The topic was formulated after three years of raptor observations.
These observations influenced the experimental procedure used in the project.
The procedure involved finding wing aspect ratio of the raptors, as well as their energy expenditure and comparing these values to find which variety was the most efficient.
The varieties studied were the Peregrine Falcon, Common Kestrel and Falco Peregrinus.
Projects from Clare, Limerick and Tipperary were on display at the event.

While the judges discussed and deliberated, the pupils were given lunch and a lecture on smart careers.
After the lecture, the prize-giving ceremony began, where Aláine was initially awarded first place in the intermediate/senior physical sciences category. She was then  announced as the winner of the Best Overall Project.
The judges commended Aláine for her depth of knowledge of her topic, as well as her enthusiasm and very obvious love of the topic.
Alaíne’s science teacher, Deirdre McGrath, praised her “great interest in science, amazing work ethic and her dedication to the project”, saying that her prizes were well deserved.
An LC1 student, Aláine will now extend her project and go on to represent herself and St Caimin’s in the SFI Discover national final in the Marino Conference Centre on November 7.
The top prize at the national final is the SFI Discover Intel ISEF award, which is an expenses-paid trip to represent Ireland at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to 15 next year.
First-year pupils Sinead Whyte, Aoife O’Brien, Vita Soldatkina and Jack Martin also participated in Scifest in 2014 and, having observed Aláine’s success first-hand, are very interested in participating again next year.