Over 1,100 school students are in Dublin’s RDS for the 59th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE).
The prestigious event showcases research and innovation in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), is in-person this year for the first time since 2020, following two successful virtual exhibitions.
At the heart of the exhibition are the 550 projects from 212 schools which span the categories of Technology; Biological and Ecological Sciences; Social and Behavioural Sciences; and Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Following judging by the 80 plus-person judging panel, the BT Young Scientist(s) & Technologist(s) of the Year 2023 will be announced at an awards ceremony on Friday at 5.30pm.
Below, we profile all of the Clare entries in this year’s competition.
Mary Immaculate Secondary School, Lisdoonvarna
Mary Immaculate Secondary School, Lisdoonvarna has nine projects participating in this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology exhibition.
Project: Does damaging Kelp affect its breaking strength?
Category: Biological and ecological sciences
Student: Ella Mooney
Ella Mooney has a project entitled “Does damaging Kelp affect its breaking strength”. In her project she looking to see if damage to kelp (Laminaria digitata) has either a positive or negative effect on the tensile strength of the seaweed.
She did this by testing the breaking strength of 60 strips of kelp in the lab that had not been damaged. She then tested the breaking strength of kelp which she had damaged in a number of different ways. She found that cuts to the side of the kelp weakened it the most with small holes drilled in it having the least effect on the breaking strength of the kelp.
Project: How much plastic is washed up on our shores?
Category: Biological and ecological sciences
Students: Áine Kelly and Ella Enright
Áine Kelly and Ella Enright are competing with a project entitled “How much plastic is washed up on our shores?” The aims of their project are to see how much plastic is accumulating on the shore at six locations in North Clare and to see how much plastic accumulates at these locations over a two month period.
They marked out a 100 meter stretch of shore to do their research in. They visited it regularly and collected any plastic found in this section of shore.
More plastic collected on some shores than on others. They found that there was an increase in the plastic deposited on the shores following a storm in the end of November. After the storm, there was a huge amount of plastic deposited on Fanore beach.
Project: An evaluation of the use of Biochar in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from urea
Category: Biological and ecological sciences
Students: Alice Davoren and Emily Cullinan
Alice Davoren and Emily Cullinan have entered a project entitled “An evaluation of the use of Biochar in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from urea”.
In their project they were looking to to see if coating urea with different amounts of biochar would reduce the release of ammonia by the urea. They also were looking to see if different types of biochar would give different results and to compare our emissions with those of the urea and protected urea.
They carried out a series of different experiments using different amounts of urea and biochar. At present their results do not point to the biochar reducing the ammonia emissions by much.
This is their second time entering the competition.
Project: Can Artificial Neural Networks Aid Hearing Impaired Individuals to Lip Read?
Category: Technology individual
Student: Fionn Rush
Fionn Rush has entered a project entitled “Can Artificial Neural Networks Aid Hearing Impaired Individuals to Lip Read?”
Lip reading is an incredibly challenging task for both humans and machine. The purpose of his investigation is to create an artificial neural network using the coding language python, to
learn to read lips through the help of algorithms, statistical models, and machine learning to accurately predict a desired result. This meant that he was training a neural network to recognize speech only using visual information.
Project: is the clumping behaviour of mussels (Mytilus edulis) affected by the presence of a predator?
Category: Biological and ecological sciences
Student: April O’Donnell
April O’Donnell’s project is entitled “is the clumping behaviour of mussels (Mytilus edulis) affected by the presence of a predator?”
She is looking to see if the clumping behaviour of mussels is affected by the scent of a predator in the water. She found that they clumped more if they were placed in seawater that had dog whelks in it previously, dog whelks being a predator of mussels.
The only exception was in smaller sized mussels. She also investigated the effect of crab in the water.
Project: A statistical analysis of the relationship between precipitation and river discharge in the Aille River catchement area
Category: Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences
Student: Oisin Jackson
Oisín Jackson has completed a statistical analysis of the relationship between precipitation and river discharge in the Aille River catchment area. Data has been collected over the past two years on rainfall and water levels in the river by the Aille Engaged project, but nothing has been done with it.
Having discussed the matter with Dr Eamon Doyle and Dr Tiernan Henry, the aims of the project are to measure the precipitation levels and the level of water in the Aille river on a daily basis for three months, calculate the flow rate of the river daily, calculate the discharge of the river using this data and analyse the relationship between catchment precipitation, level of water in the river and river discharge.
This will be achieved by setting up four rain gauges at different locations and reading them on a daily basis.
Project: Effect that position in a turlough has on the morphology of the leaves of Ranunculus repens
Category: Biological and ecological sciences
Students: Niamh Linnane and Noelle Byrne
Niamh Linnane and Noelle Byrne examined the effect that position in a turlough has on the morphology of the leaves of Ranunculus repens (Creeping Buttercup).
The project aims to see if there are significant differences in leaf morphology of Ranunculus repens populations that grow in the turlough basins mentioned below and Ranunculus repens populations that grow adjacent to these turlough basins.
It wants to see it the location of the Ranunculus repens in the turlough basin has an effect on leaf morphology and to assess the suitability of Ranunculus repens leaf morphology for working out the extent of flooding in turlough basins.
They selected three local turlough sites to carry out their research.
Project: Mobile phone coverage and the topography of North Clare
Category: Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences
Students: Aisling Vaughan and Alana McKinnon
Aisling Vaughan and Alana McKinnon submitted a project entitled “Mobile phone coverage and the topography of North Clare”.
After examining the COMREG maps, they found some areas just a kilometre apart have different coverage.
The project aims to map the mobile phone signal strength, upload and download speeds for Eir, Three and Vodafone in the North Clare area; examine what effect topography has on signal strength, upload and download speeds for the different providers; see if the data we collect is in line with coverage maps provided by COMREG and see if further mast location could alleviate coverage black spots.
Project: Movement of the Common Periwinkle (Littorina littorea) over three different zones
Category: Biological and ecological sciences
Students: Patrick Byrne O’Connell and Thomas O’Regan
A project submitted by Patrick Byrne O’Connell and Thomas O’Regan examines the movement of the Common Periwinkle (Littorina littorea) over three different zones of the shore – the lower, middle and upper zones.
The project aims to determine whether the movement of Littorina littorea is related to the lunar cycle. They expect to find that the Common Periwinkle will move towards the upper zones of the shore as the moon grows brighter. If a pattern of movement is discovered that appears to be linked to the lunar cycles, this may show that the movement is in conjunction with the tides.
Conducting shore visits as often as possible, they gathered data from three zones of the shore with two transects within each zone. The data gathered from the lower shore zone would comprise of Lower T1 and T2. Within each transect, quadrats are thrown, and the data collected from within this process is repeated for the middle and upper zones and they then measured the distance of five of the nearest Littorina littorea from three large rocks.
CBS Ennistymon
Project: The Normandy Landings: As They Happened
Category:Technology (Individual)
Student: Oisin Coughlan (second year)
“Oisín has designed a history app. When you run the app on your phone there are facts and figures about the Normandy landings during World War II. Oisin is very interested in history, he’s into battle re-enactments, he buys war memorabilia and things like that.
He’s also very good at computer coding as well. We have a coding class for junior cycle and he learned it there, and decided to write an app based on his hobby.
There’s pictures, a lot of information to do with the Normandy landings and there’s a quiz at the end of it,” says teacher Sean Murphy.
“He writes the code in Java script and it’s a very attractive looking app. He’s got some amazing graphics, pictures and videos. This topic is a real passion for him,” Mr Murphy added.
The app is not available in app stores at the moment, but can be shared with a link or QR code.
Oisin came third in the Young Scientist competition last year, with a separate app. “He has gone on a bit further this year and developed things with a different topic,” said Mr Murphy.
Project: An Investigation to determine if there is any correlation between the incidence of lung cancer in dogs and living in regions with high levels of Radon in County Clare. Biological & Ecological Group
Category: Biological & Ecological (Group)
Student:John Sheridan and Caimin McGlennon (Third year)
“John’s dog at home died of cancer, and he was wondering was there any link between the high radon levels that you have in Clare and cancer, in dogs in particular,” said teacher Sean Murphy.
“Basically they sent out surveys all over the country to vets and so on, and to pet owners, they sent out a couple of hundred of them. They compared radon areas like Clare and non-radon areas such as Dublin, just to see if they could find a link between the radon levels and the rate of cancer in dogs,” he added.
Positively, he says there doesn’t seem to be a significant link.” As far as I know they haven’t found a link so far, but it’s still a work in progress,” said Mr Murphy.
Project: Realities of Imaginary Numbers
Category Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences (Group)
Students: Daniel Vaughan and Rory Linnane (5th years)
“There’s this pure maths topic that they study for Leaving Cert, complex numbers. The boys were studying this in school and they were wondering what it could be used for in the real world, as any student would, because the topic is so abstract,” says teacher Sean Murphy.
“ They started looking it up and researching it, they found lots of different real life applications of this topic, ranging from computer graphic design, electronic signals, voltage in power stations, things like analysing magnetic fields, signal processing in general which is in the electronic field. The idea is they took something very abstract and very mathematical and showed how it’s applied to real life problems that are very practical and they showed how it solves some very practical problems.”
St Joseph’s Community College Kilkee
Project: Kelpoleum: Sugar kelp Biofuel as an Alternative to Petroleum Fuel,
Category: Biological and Ecological Sciences
Students: Ailish Marrinan, Caragh Killeen and Cian McInerney
STUDENTS from St Joseph’s Community College in Kilkee have been showcasing their research at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in recent days.
Their project is entitled Kelpoleum: Sugar kelp Biofuel as an Alternative to Petroleum Fuel, and qualified in the Senior section of the Biological and Ecological Sciences category.
The team is made up of Ailish Marrinan, Caragh Killeen and Cian McInerney
The project’s aim was to extract biofuel from sugar kelp (Saccharina Latissima) biomass, using chemical pre-treatment and hydrothermal liquefaction. Using a hydrothermal synthesis autoclave containing the slurry made from the kelp biomass, students heated the slurry to a high temperature and pressure to investigate bio-oil yield.
Scoil Mhuire, Ennistymon
Project Title – An Analysis of Routing Algorithms in Electronic Design
Students – Alanna Hayes
Category – Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences
STAFF and students of Scoil Mhuire in Ennistymon will be ‘routing’ for the success of fifth year student Alanna Hayes in this year’s BT Young Scientist competition. Alanna’s project is titled, ‘An Analysis of Routing Algorithms in Electronic Design’. For her project she aimed to investigate the use of routing in technological design, compare some of the current algorithms against each other, and then use the knowledge she accumulated to write her own algorithm.
She explains, “Routing is a very important area in the design of chips. It is an imperative part of the aim to decrease delay, reduce size of circuits, provide increased performance quality, and increase cost effectiveness for devices. It is performed after components are placed on the chip and is the process of connecting components which need to be connected to each other in the chip.
“For my project, I spent a large amount of time investigating routing and learning about what it is, I watched lectures and read a lot of books on the topic and after all of that, I wrote my own routing algorithm called “Alanna’s Algorithm” for use in grid routing. I have had a great time putting together my project and am so excited to travel to Dublin to participate in the exhibition!”
St Joseph’s Secondary School, Spanish Point
Project Title – The Root of Water
Students – Aoife Corry, Nadine Clancy, Tara Dwyer
Category – Senior – Biological
STUDENTS of St Joseph’s Secondary School in Spanish Point certainly aren’t hedging their bets when it comes to their entry for this year’s BT Young Scientist competition.
Aoife Corry, Nadine Clancy, Tara Dwyer have been investigating hedgerows and they are hoping their findings will be of benefit to farmers.
Their project looks at native species of hedging and how they transpire water. Transpiration occurs when plants take up liquid water from the soil and release water vapour into the air from their leaves.
Teacher Catherine Clair explains, “On farmlands and countrysides hedgerows are vital for many reasons.
“They are important to support habitats for many wildlife species, they provide flowers and fauna for pollinators from spring right through to autumn and they absorb water from the soil in the process of transpiration.
“This project investigated three of our native species of hedging and looked at their ability to transpire water. Beech, Hawthorn and Guelder rose were used.
“Growing plants were monitored over a period of weeks. Soil moisture content was measured using a soil moisture meter, soil pH and temperature was also measured.
“It was found that Guelder rose consistently transpired the most water. There are many initiatives encouraging farmers to plant hedging. This type of information can help farmers identify the most appropriate species of hedging for their soil depending on its water content.
“Farmers were surveyed as part of this project. Of those who had planted hedging it was found that 21% planted hedging in response to soil suitability and 26% planted to improve biodiversity.
“This project provides the basis for future research into other native species of hedging, further monitoring soil moisture and how soil structure and the rhizosphere changes in response to planting.”