John the Baptist Community School enjoyed an extremely successful week in the RDS in Dublin this year for the 50th BT Young Scientist Exhibition. Seven groups qualified from the school as part of the 550 projects that were selected from over 2000 entries for this year’s competition. This was the largest number of projects that has ever qualified from the school, so the students had broken new boundaries before they ever left Limerick.
The students were a credit to themselves, their families and their school in the manner of how they conducted themselves while up in Dublin. They were polite, well-behaved and great fun. A crowd of 45,000 people descended into the RDS, and all of the groups wowed both the judges and the public alike with their knowledge and enthusiasm about their projects. In addition, a large number of the groups were interviewed by national press such as: 2fm, Radio One, Irish Times, Sunday Business Post and Siliconrepublic.com. Three groups were awarded highly commended rosettes, and one group was presented with the prestigious Google Creative Technology Award (Group). Well done to all who entered projects and represented the school so well. A special thanks and congratulations also goes to their hardworking teachers and mentors: Mr. Kevin Buckley, Ms. Michelle Buckley and Ms. Ita O’Donovan.
The following are the students who qualified along with their project titles:
- Brian Thompson, Ian Dooley, Cathal Shanahan: The Farm Theft Prevention App
Winner: Highly Commended Rosette and Google Creative Technology Award- Best Group
- Caoimhe O’Dea, David Noonan: Eco Friendly Greenhouse
Winner: Highly Commended Rosette
- Niamh O’Brien, Grace Garvey, Conor Garvey: Seeing is Believing… Or is it?
Winner: Highly Commended Rosette
- Conor Fitzpatrick: Constant Agitation of Slurry using renewable energy
- Ruth Kennedy, Kate Kennedy: The Feel Good Factor
- James Corby, Conor McCarthy, John William Ryan: How Effective are Acne Treatments?
- Siobhán Rogers: An Analysis and Comparison of Various Writing Styles
Here are some of the various stories in National Media about the school’s entries:
Conor Fitzpatrick’s Slurry Tank Innovation in “The Irish Times“
SiliconRepublic interviewing Brian Thompson, Ian Dooley, Cathal Shanahan about their Farm Theft Protection Ap (at 5:05mins)