TRALEE students were among the winners at the IT Tralee North Campus for the SciFest science competition on Thursday.
SciFest is a one day international science and technology competition for second level students who showcase original projects.
IT Tralee played host to one of fifteen regional finals on Thursday. Students were judged on their entries for a variety of awards to be won. The overall winner is then entered into national competition, where the winner of that will get a chance to represent Ireland abroad.
In total there were 76 entries from around the region from 180 students taking part, including 16 projects from Tralee schools, Mercy Mounthawk, CBS The Green and Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí.
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The top prize on the day went to Liam Passmore from John the Baptist Community School in Hospital, Co Limerick, for his project ‘A statistical analysis of whether segregrating males and females in PE will increase participation and physical activity levels’.
Eoghan Pattwell St Brendan’s College, Killarney was the runner-up for his project ‘Does two chains on a racing bike improve efficiency?’
Eabha Ni Chathasaigh of Intermediate School, Killorglin won the Best Project in the Junior Category ‘To see the effects fizzy drinks have on our bodies’.
Gaelcholáiste Chiarraí, students, Lorraine De Nais, Ursula Ní Mhochóir and Janine Ní Chonchúir won the ‘Sustainable Energy Award’. They invented a system that would both generate electricity and stop coastal erosion. The girls will now compete for the SEAI INESPO Award (International Environment & Sustainability Project Olympiad). Five projects will be selected from 15 regional winners to exhibit at the national final on November 6 in Dublin and the overall winner/s will travel with their teacher to the Netherlands in May 2016 to compete in INESPO.
For Mercy Mounthawk, John McCrohan, Robin Porter, picked up the ‘Health Awareness Award’ for their project that investigated the levels of micro‐organisms on everyday technological devices.
Sean Myers St Brendan’s College, Killarney won the Junior Innovation Award; Armanda Bendaravicius St Brendan’s College, Killarney won the Innovation Award for her project on ‘Drift Turbines’.
Caoimhe O’Brien, Grainne Condon, Grainne Ryan of John the Baptist Community School, Hospital, Limerick won the Maths In Science Award ‘To investigate the presence of pesticide residue in apples and analuse the results and discover a safe means of removing the pesticides’.
Kathleen Kennedy of Tarbert Comprehensive won the PharmaChemical Ireland Award for ‘Seaweed – natural answer to obesity?’ while teacher Eimear Nolan of Tarbert Comprehensive School won the Royal Society of Chemistry Education Division (RSC School Chemistry Award).
“Its great to see so many young people who are interested in Science and Technology. The diversity of the projects which were on display today was fantastic and the students who were exhibiting their work are a credit to their schools, their families and themselves,” said leader of the judging panel, Dr Ultan McCarthy, IMaR Centre Manager at IT, Tralee.
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