This year we had seven projects entered into the BT Young Scientist and Technology Competition, of which a brilliant four managed to get through the rigorous selection process to display their projects at the exhibition in January. BTYST Exhibition is the biggest, and oldest, science competition in the world, and it is a fantastic experience for all our students to compete against the best in the land.
Our qualifiers included Liam Murphy and Cathal O’Grady Corcoran in the senior Physical Sciences section with their project ‘How we could have saved the Pirates: an analysis of Vitamin C content following various cooking methods’ . The boys achieved a Highly Commended award for their efforts.
Leaving Certificate Dan Carey was competing at the Exhibition for an unprecedented fourth time, and his Biological Sciences project titled ‘the carbon footprint of Macrofauna’ detailed how woodlice and millipedes are also contributing significantly to the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere as the planet warms up and they become more active
In the Junior categories, Ruihan Wu displayed his project investigating ‘The impact of Microplastics on Sea sand temperature’ in the Biological Sciences section. Ruihan put a huge amount of effort into his research, which was well received by the judges
Finally, Aoibheann O’Grady Corcoran became the first female scientist to represent CMM when the second year student demonstrated her project ‘Watch out’ to the judges. Her project was entered in the Technology section and was a prototype watch that will help detect falls in the elderly. Aoibheann received a huge amount of interest from the public, and from one or two companies interested in developing her idea. ‘Watch’ this space!
Mya Nyoni and Tiffany Djoukang also travelled with the competitors, as although they were not selected to compete this time their project was on the standby list, and no doubt the experience they gained from being there will stand to them in their future efforts at qualifying.
