Patrician High School

Co Monaghan

Title: Easy farming

Category: Technology

Transition Year students Darragh Matthews and Barry Mohan have developed an animal caring unit with an automatic dosing section and hydromantic footbath, that aims to save livestock farmers both time and money. The inspiration behind their idea stemmed from Darragh’s grandmother’s farm, as the lads felt they could help out and come up with a device to cut down the workload on the farm.

“As the cow passes through the scanner a device reads the electronic collar around the cow’s neck to see if she needs to be dosed. If the cow needs to be dosed she is drafted into a caring unit where her weight is calculated and the correct dosage is administered based on this. We’ve had a lot of interest in our product,” Barry explained.

The lads are currently developing an app that will allow the farmer to see the daily distance travelled by the animal and its feed requirement, as well as information on dosage requirements.

St Oliver’s Community College

Louth

Title: Ugly food – do looks matter?

Category: Social and behavioural sciences

Would you eat deformed food? Irene McDonnell and Muireann Mulholland surveyed 500 people in the Louth area and found 52% of people wouldn’t buy unusually shaped fruit and vegetables.

“I heard that crops weren’t great this year because of the bad weather,” says Irene. “The deformed vegetables are left to rot in the field, which is a huge waste. A total of 10% of potatoes are deformed and 25% to 30% of carrots.”

The girls started a ‘buy ugly’ campaign and sold misshapen vegetables, donated by local farmers Eoin Curran and Pat Hickey, in their local supermarket for a reduced price.

“We want to change people’s perception of food and prevent waste,” concludes Irene.

Coláiste Muire

Crosshaven, Cork

Title: Free-range eggs – who’s the mammy?

Category: Technology

Maille Cronin, a pupil from Coláiste Muire, Crosshaven, undertook a project to determine which hens are laying which eggs in a free-range poultry farm, using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and wireless sensor technology. Maille, not being from an agricultural background, found her little cousin Frankie to be the inspiration for the project.

“He asked me why some hens are laying and others aren’t. It got me thinking and I decided to find out why this was so.”

She discovered that hens with a bright red comb and white legs tend to lay more than hens with yellow legs and a dull red comb.

Kinsale Community School

Cork

Title: How social networking promotes narcissism

Category: Social and behavioural sciences

We always thought selfie lovers had a high opinion of themselves and research by Christine Marron (see right) proves that people who use social networking sites do have higher narcissistic tendencies than those who don’t have Facebook and Twitter profiles.

“But I also discovered that these people have lower self-esteem,” adds the Transition Year student.

She interviewed 92 people between the ages of 10 and 55 and found that the majority of people who are on Facebook check the site on a daily or hourly basis.

She also discovered that Snapchat is the most popular social networking app among teenagers.

Bush Post Primary School

Louth

Title: Moo Boots

Category: Biological and ecological sciences

Moo Boots were designed by Transition Year students Stephen Lynch, Conor Ryan and Stephen Woods (see right) to protect and heal cows suffering from hoof rot. The device reduces healing time and is easy for farmers to use.

The lads benefitted from the help and advice of vet Brian Flynn and local farmers.

“We tested the rough prototypes on Stephen’s grandad’s farm,” explains Conor. “The product we have now is modelled on ski boots and can be rolled on and off the cows foot by the farmer. Old designs use glue and are more difficult to put on.”

The boys intend to develop the product for the market.

Franciscan College

Meath

Title: Farm app

Category: Technology

Representing Franciscan College, Gormanstown, David Newcomen and Pauric Leech (see right) spoke to Irish Country Living about their app which helps dairy farmers identify which cows are next to calve. They wanted to create an app that is simple and easy to use. “We are aware that there are many similar apps of this kind on the market, but many of these turn out to be too complicated to use.

“Our app, iHerd, is simple. It calculates the expected date of calving once the cow’s ID number and date of insemination are entered.” Pauric explained.

iQuote is another app that the guys are working on.

“iQuote allows farmers to receive online quotes for fertiliser, grain and feed prices,” David explained.

They found that the majority of farmers under 40 own a smart phone, but they are not using it for farm tasks.

The boys are currently working on a number of other applications and hope to upload them to the app store soon.

After the cheers and celebrations die down students go back to their classrooms, but for some winners the competition led to a successful career in science, writes Ciara O’Kelly

John Monahan – 1965

The first ever winner of the Young Scientist was John Monahan. The 230-student event was held in the Round Room at the Mansion House and John won the prize for his artificial stomach.

“As I remember, it was an apparatus used to examine and describe how enzymes digest food in the body,” John says today.

Security wasn’t quite so tight back then. When John went back into the exhibition room after the cleaners had tidied up, he spotted the star attached to his project, but that didn’t take away from his surprise when he was announced as the winner.

After that boost, John was determined to stick with science. He completed a BSc in University College Dublin, then a PhD in Canada and moved to America. He worked in a number of biotechnology firms before setting up his own Nasdaq-listed company in the 1990s. He stills serves on the board of a number of US and Irish-based biotech companies.

Nearly 50 years later, he still recognises how that one small event in the Round Room was the first step on his science journey.

Catherine Conlon – 1981

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but when Catherine Conlon won the Young Scientist competition in 1981 it was spiders. Her study on spider webs proved from the get-go that Catherine had amazing research skills.

Looking at the way spiders build their web, she documented two common spider species over a two-year period. No last minute deadlines for Catherine.

She also got up close and personal to measure the strength of the individual fibres, noting that spider web strands are stronger than steel cables (to scale). She even studied how the angles formed between the strands change throughout the year in response to weather conditions.

There was no doubt that this girl deserved first place and although she deviated away from spiders in her career she stuck with science, qualifying as a doctor from UCD before moving into public health.

She now lectures in public health and epidemiology and even finds time to write fiction and non-fiction books.

Patrick Collison – 2005

In 2005, Patrick Collision stood on the stage of the Young Scientist competition beaming with pride at his achievement.

Three years later (aged 19), Patrick was smiling at the photographers once again, but this time he was holding a cheque for €3.2 million.

Patrick and his brother John had just sold their company Auctomatic to a Canadian firm, but he attributes this success right back to the BT Young Scientist & Technology exhibition.

Patrick always loved computer programming and it was no surprise that he won first prize at the Young Scientist competition after developing a new programming language, Croma, for writing web applications.

After studying maths and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he then set up Auctomatic which developed software that could be used to track sales on eBay.

In 2010 Patrick cofounded a new company called Stripe, which provides an easy internet payment transactions service for individuals and companies.

The company now employs 75 people, but Patrick still says:

“The BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition was easily the most important thing that happened in secondary school and opened a lot of doors and opportunities for me.”