Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition
The BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, commonly called the Young Scientist Exhibition, is an Irish annual school students' science competition that has been held in Dublin, Ireland, every January since 1965.[1]
Contents
The competition
The purpose of the competition is to encourage interest in science in primary and secondary schools. For the 51st year of the competition in 2015, there were about 2,000 entries, the highest number ever,[2] 550 of which were selected for the Exhibition at the Royal Dublin Society.
Students apply to participate in the competition. Their science project entries are evaluated by judges and about one third of applicants are accepted to participate in the public exhibition. Students are allocated exhibition stands in an exhibition hall where they set up their projects for viewing by the public. Competing projects are judged during the three days of exhibition, and prizes are awarded.
Projects are awarded in four categories: biology, physics, social and behavioral sciences, and technology. Three levels of entry are accepted.[1] In each category three main prizes are awarded; other prizes include a display award, highly commended rosettes, and a cancer awareness award. The winners of the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition advance to participate in international events such as the European Union Contest for Young Scientists.
Aer Lingus sponsored the competition for the first 33 years.[1] 2015 was the 15th year in which the Exhibition was sponsored by BT Ireland.[3] It has produced[clarification needed] at least one author, Sarah Flannery, and one millionaire, Patrick Collison.[3] Many of the past winners have gone on to establish international companies in the technology they developed. One of the most notable was Baltimore Technologies.
Father Tom Burke, who co-founded the exhibition with physicist Tony Scott, died in March 2008.[4] An award at the event was named in his memory.
Winners by year
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Year | Winner | Age | School | Project Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1986 | Niamh Mulvany & Breda Maguire | 17 | Rosary College, Raheny, Dublin | Focus on the Viola Tricolour - an Indepth study on Bull Island | Niamh and Breda went on to win a top award for Ireland at the Philips European competition for Young Scientists and Inventors in Oslo in May 1986. They were presented to King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden at the Nobel Ball later in 1986. Both went on to graduate from Trinity College Dublin with degrees in Natural Sciences, specialising in Botany. |
1987 | Henry Byrne & Emma Donnellan | FCJ Secondary School, Bunclody, Wexford | Fibre Optic Liquid Analyser | ||
1988 | Siobhan Lanigan O'Keeffe | Navan Community College, Co Meath | Geothermal Study of the River Skane | ||
1989 | Grace O'Connor and Sinead Finn | Ursuline College, Thurles, Co Tipperary | A Study on a Crop Fractation Industry | ||
1990 | Anna Minchin-Dalton | Alexandra College, Milltown, Dublin | Studies of the Oyster Thief | ||
1991 | Daniel Dundas and Barry O'Doherty | St. Patrick's College, Maghera, Derry | Dynamics of a Two-Well Potential Oscillator | ||
1992 | Elizabeth Dowling & Jean Byrne | St Paul's Secondary School, Dublin | A Picture Winged Insect. Population Dynamics of a Thistle Predator Terellia Serratulae | ||
1993 | Donal Keane & Rodger Toner | Abbey Grammar School, Newry, Co Down | Assessment of Female Quality by Male Gammarus | ||
1994 | Jane Feehan | St Brendan's Community School | The Secret Life of the Calluna Case-Carrier | ||
1995 | Brian Fitzpatrick and Shane Markey | Abbey Grammar School, Newry | Factors Affecting Cavitation in Whole Plants, Leaves and Vascular Bundles using Acoustic Detection | ||
1996 | Elsie O'Sullivan, Rowens Mooney, Patricia Lyne | Scoil Mhuire, Portarlington, Co. Laois | The Perfect Queen Bee | ||
1997 | Ciara McGoldrick, Emma McQuillan, Fiona Fraser | 17 | Dominican College, Belfast | The preservation of Biological Data in European Bog Bodies. | |
1998[5] | Raphael Hurley | 15 | Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh, Bishopstown, Cork | The Mathematics of Monopoly | Gained a BSc (Hons) Joint Honours in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics from University College Cork in 2005[6] Was named UCC Graduate of the Year in February 2006 |
1999 | Sarah Flannery | 16 | Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál, Blarney | Cryptography – A new algorithm versus the RSA | Wrote a book on her algorithm and number theory in general, In Code: A Mathematical Journey (ISBN 0-7611-2384-9) First place – 11th European Union Contest for Young Scientists Gained a BA in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge in 2003, worked for Wolfram Research for a period and in 2006 was working with the EA Software Company in California, United States[citation needed] |
2000 | Thomas Gernon | 16 | Coláiste Rís, Dundalk, County Louth | The Geography and Mathematics of Europe's Urban Centres | First time in the competition's 36-year history that a Social & Behavioural Sciences project won the top award[7] Graduated with First Class Honours in Geology from University College Dublin in 2004, going on to complete a PhD at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol[citation needed] His research on the dynamics of volcanic eruptions has taken him from diamond mines in Botswana and Arctic Canada, to many active volcanoes around the world, including those of Iceland, Italy, Greece and Far Eastern Siberia[citation needed] Currently lecturer of geology at Trinity College, Dublin[citation needed] |
2001[8] | Peter Taylor, Shane Browne and Michael O'Toole | — | — | Investigating symmetrical shapes formed by polygons | |
2002[9] | David Michael O'Doherty | — | Gonzaga College, Ranelagh, Dublin | The Distribution of the Primes and the Underlying Order to Chaos. | Mathematics undergraduate at Cambridge |
2003[10] | Adnan Osmani | 16 | St Finnian's College, Mullingar, County Westmeath | The graphical technological and user-friendly advancement of the Internet browser: XWebs | Osmani filed for a patent for his networking socket and web browser in 2003. He graduated with a B.Sc. in Software Engineer from Sheffield Hallam University, a Masters in Software Engineering from Warwick University and certificates in security from Oxford University. He has since written books on JavaScript development for O'Reilly and now works as an engineer at Google. |
2004[11] | Ronan Larkin | 16 | Synge Street CBS, Dublin | Generalised Continued Fractions | Mentored by Jim Cooke |
2005 | Patrick Collison | 16 | Castletroy College, Limerick | Croma: a new dialect of Lisp | Became an overnight millionaire at the age of 19 when he, alongside his 17-year-old brother John, sold their software company Auctomatic to a Canadian firm for more than €3 million[12] |
2006 | Aisling Judge | 14 | Kinsale Community School, County Cork | The development and evaluation of a biological food spoilage indicator | Third place – 18th European Union Contest for Young Scientists; First Junior Category Winner[13] |
2007 | Abdusalam Abubakar | 17 | Synge Street CBS, Dublin | An Extension of Wiener's Attack on RSA | First place – 19th European Union Contest for Young Scientists[14] Originally from Somalia, had not used a computer before arriving in Ireland twenty months earlier.[15] Mentored by Jim Cooke |
2008 | Emer Jones | 13 | Presentation Secondary School, Tralee, County Kerry | Research and Development of Emergency Sandbag Shelters | Youngest ever winner[16] First winner from County Kerry[17] First time her school had entered[17] |
2009 | Liam McCarthy and John D. O'Callaghan | 13/14 | Kinsale Community School, County Cork | The Development of a Convenient Test Method for Somatic Cell Count and Its Importance In Milk Production | Kinsale Community School became the first to hold two separate national award winners after Aisling Judge's 2006 win.[18][not in citation given] First place – 21st European Union Contest for Young Scientists[19] |
2010 | Richard O'Shea | 18 | Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál, Blarney, County Cork | A biomass fired cooking stove for developing countries | |
2011[20] | Alexander Amini | 15 | Castleknock College, Dublin | Tennis sensor data analysis | |
2012[21] | Mark Kelly and Eric Doyle | 17/17 | Synge Street CBS, Dublin | Simulation accuracy in the gravitational many-body problem | Synge Street CBS win the overall award for an unprecented three times[22]
First place – 24th European Union Contest for Young Scientists in Bratislava[23][24] |
2013 | Emer Hickey, Sophie Healy-Thow and Ciara Judge | 15/15/15 | Kinsale Community School, Cork | A statistical investigation of the effects of Diazotroph bacteria on plant germination. | Third time in seven years Kinsale Community School had won the competition. The girls went on take first prize at the EU Contest for Young Scientists in Prague in September 2013 and win the grand prize in the 2014 Google Science Fair in California. |
2014 | Paul Clarke | 17 | St Paul's College, Dublin | Contributions to cyclic graph theory. | This is the second time the school has won the event. |
2015 | Ian O'Sullivan and Eimear Murphy | 16/16 | Coláiste Treasa, Kanturk, Co Cork | Alcohol consumption: Does the apple fall far from the tree? | |
2016 |
Winners by age
The youngest winners are listed first.
Age | Winner | School | Project Title | Year |
---|---|---|---|---|
13[16] | Emer Jones | Presentation Secondary School, Tralee, County Kerry | Research and Development of Emergency Sandbag Shelters | 2008 |
13/14 | Liam McCarthy and John D. O'Callaghan | Kinsale Community School, County Cork | The Development of a Convenient Test Method for Somatic Cell Count and Its Importance In Milk Production | 2009 |
14[25] | Aisling Judge | Kinsale Community School, County Cork | The development and evaluation of a biological food spoilage indicator | 2006 |
See also
References
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External links
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- Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition
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