Students get set for the Young Scientist Exhibition
THE bright lights of the RDS are calling once again for 6th year student, Seán Byrne from Avondale Community College, Rathdrum as he competes in the national contest for the fourth and final time.
The annually held Young Scientist competition has long attracted the brightest and most enthusiastic students from around the country to compete for the title of ‘BT Young Scientist and Technologist of the Year’.
Seán will compete along with second year student Aisling Byrne whose project investigates ‘Are Farmers Wasting Money on Footbath Solution?’.
The aim of her project is to compare recycled milking machine wash with commercial footbath solution and in tests to date Aisling has shown that the recycled milking machine wash is an effective method of preventing lameness.
His first project in 2015 titled ‘An Investigation into the Conditions Favourable to Bread Mould Growth’ earned him a place at the BT Young Scientist.
At the SciFest regional final in 2015 Seán was awarded the prize of the ‘ISTA Best Junior Project award’. At the BT Young Scientist the following year, he built on this success and also changed category. He moved into the ‘Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Sciences’ area where his project ‘An Investigation into Worker Exposure to Toxic Chemicals’ earned him a second place in his category. His 2017 project ‘ The Ugly side of Beauty: An Investigation into Toxic chemicals used in Cosmetics’ earned him the first prize at the SciFest regional final and a place in the national final of SciFest. Seán’s efforts won him ‘ The Higher Education Authority’ award at the national final. To round off his success he also won the ‘Advanced Sensors Award’ at the Sentinus Northern Ireland competition in the same year.
In January 2018 Seán entered the BT Young Scientist with a new project called ‘Glogos: Self Illuminated Clothing’ which later enjoyed success at the SciFest final in Carlow IT where he was awarded the ‘ best project’ award.
Seán’s final project has been entered in the ‘Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Sciences’ category. His project called ‘An Egg Filtration System to Remove Pollutants from Water’ aims to remove harmful heavy metals and microplastics from water using eggshells as a filtration system.
Seán and Aisling’s entries are two of 13 Wicklow projects which have qualified for this year’s exhibition which takes place from January 9 - 12.
Two projects have been entered from Presentation College, Bray, one from Coláiste Chill Mhantáin, and the remainder from St Mary’s College, Arklow, St Gerard’s, Bray, Dominican College, Wicklow and Gaelcholáiste na Mara, Arklow.