SciFest Ezine, National Final Special Edition, Volume 14, Number 2, December 2022

SciFest Ezine

National Final Special Edition

Volume 14, Number 2, December 2022

Sixth year students’ investigation of Pythagoras’ Theorem wins SciFest 2022

Liam Waldron, Rachel Griffin and Luke O’Sullivan, sixth year students from Killarney Community College, Co. Kerry, were named SciFest STEM Champions 2022 for their project, 'A Group Theoretic Approach to Pythagoras’ Theorem' The students will go on to represent Ireland at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Dallas, Texas next year

The National Final awards ceremony, held in the Marino Conference Centre in Dublin on 25 November, was attended by student finalists from all over Ireland Liam, Rachel and Luke were presented with the SciFest STEM Champions 2022 Award by Sheila Porter, SciFest Founder and CEO The students secured their place at the National Final after their victory at the SciFest regional final at MTU Kerry.

This year marks the 17th year of the SciFest programme which sees students participating in local and regional SciFest STEM fairs across the country Since launching in 2006 more than 90,000 students have participated in the competition; this represents an average year-on-year increase of almost 20% in participation.

The SciFest 2022 National Final

The SciFest 2022 National Final took place on Thursday and Friday 24/25 November. The fair was a hybrid event with an online element on the Thursday evening and an in-person event in the Marino Conference Centre, Dublin on the Friday There was a dedicated website (scifestfinal2022.ie) which hosted the students’ projects and videos as well as a number of presentations This website will remain live until next year’s final.

Thursday's programme started at 7.30 pm with the general public being invited by Philip Smyth, Broadcaster and Science Communicator, to tune in to a number of STEM talks First up was Prof Aoife McLysaght, Molecular Evolution Lab, Smurfit Institute of Genetics, TCD. Her talk was entitled 'How New Stuff Happens: The Evolution of New Genes' This was followed by a talk entitled 'Building Ireland's First Satellite' given by Dr David McKeown, Assistant Professor in the UCD School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and Engineering Manager of EIRSAT-1 The evening closed with a compilation of short presentations from people working in STEM called 'It's a STEM Life'

Between the national finalists and the finalists in the Boston Scientific Medical Devices competition a total of 52 students exhibited 28 projects at the in-person event on Friday The three projects that won travel awards at last year’s event were also on display. Throughout the morning the projects were evaluated by an expert panel of 31 judges representing academia, SciFest alumni, enterprise and government The top projects were finally selected and the awards ceremony took place at 2 pm This was streamed live via YouTube, see link

The Minister for Education, Norma Foley, TD, addressed the students by video and Richard Bruton, TD visited the exhibition and talked to the students There were also video addresses from Alumnus Aaron Hannon and NASA Astronaut Kayla Barron

Boston

SciFest STEM Champion 2022 Runner-Up Maha Shahzadi, Coláiste Nano Nagle, Limerick Project: Eataware

Berlin Long Night of Science Award

Anna Woodward, Alex Scott, Ursuline College, Sligo Project: CoolAid: A Wearable Hypothermia Prevention Device

Scientific Medical Devices Grand Award

Fionn Rush, Mary Immaculate Secondary School, Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare Project: Can Artificial Neural Networks Aid Hearing Impaired Individuals to Lip-Read?

Boston Scientific Medical Devices Grand Award Runners-up

Jim Culhane, Paula-Eve Culhane, Tarbert Comprehensive School, Co Kerry

Project: CPR Pedal Chest Compression Device

Intel Technology Award

Maura Moore-McCune, The Kings Hospital, Palmerstown, Dublin 20

Project: VIPMOD: Visually Impaired Person’s Moving Object Detector

SciFest Social Sciences Award

Tommy Morris, Mairéad Lohan

Roscommon Community College

Project: An Investigation into the Recovery of Adolescents Moving from the Sympathetic to the Parasympathetic Nervous System

SciFest Life Sciences Award

Honor Lynch, Aoife Lynn, Juliette Kelleher, Loreto College, St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2

Project: The Einstein of Enzymes: A Battle Against Plastic Pollution

THEA Award

Laura Brennan, Desmond College, Newcastle West, Co Limerick Project: Mela No More

ISTA Award

Sean Allen

Roscommon Community College Project: A Novel Alternative to Synthetic Fertilizers

SciFest

SciFest Scientist of the Future Award

Micheál Deely, C J Burke, Abbey Vocational School, Donegal Town

Project: A Dyslexia Lamp with a Difference

Regeneron ISEF | Regional Awards

American Psychological Association Award (APA): Tommy Morris, Mairéad Lohan, Roscommon Community College

The YALE SCIENCE & ENGINEERING ASSOCIATION, INC. Award: Rachel Griffin, Luke O'Sullivan, Liam Waldron, Killarney Community College, Co Kerry

Maura Moore-McCune, The Kings Hospital, Palmerstown, Dublin 20

'STEM subjects nurture and cultivate curiosity and can develop and cultivate inquiring minds, from an early age. These subjects are crucial for equipping the young people of today with the problem-solving and critical thinking–skills needed to meet the challenges of tomorrow. It is fantastic to see so many young people actively engaging with important issues like climate change and looking at practical, creative and innovative solutions which could contribute to our response. The projects on display here today will show how science, technology, engineering and maths can be applied to real world problems, often in unexpected ways.'

Minister Norma Foley TD

We are delighted to see that participation in the SciFest@School strand of the SciFest programme is returning to normal after Covid. Some 57 schools have registered to host their own in-house SciFest@School STEM fair for this year so far. See the full updated list of SciFest@School fairs by clicking on the link.

Congratulations to the science teachers in St Raphaela's Secondary School in Stillorgan who were presented with a Silver SciFest STEM School Award in recognition of having completed five years of SciFest@School STEM fairs The Award was presented at their SciFest@School STEM fair on 9 November by Sheila Porter, SciFest Founder and CEO to the organising teacher, Crena Shelvin and Eileen O'Donnell, school principal.

The SciFest@School EirGrid Climate and Delivering a Cleaner Energy Future Award is designed to raise awareness in second-level students of the need for climate action and to encourage them to become catalysts for change with regards to the most important issue facing the world today

The first EirGrid Award of the current academic year was presented at a TY SciFest@School STEM fair in the Presentation Secondary School, Ballyphehane, Cork in October The award went to Katie and Shauna for their project, ‘Climate Change on Habitats is not a Myth’ Well done to Katie and Shauna and to their teachers and mentors, Gretta O’Sullivan and Ms Collins

Other projects that have qualified for the award include: ‘Does Daylight Saving Time Save Light in the Case of the Home?’ by Hanna in St Andrew's College Dublin, 'Effect of Insulation on Heat Capacity' by Clodagh, Kayla and Catriona, Beech Hill College, Co. Monaghan and 'Developing a Prototype of a Solar and Wind Powered Lamp with Motion Detector' by Eva, Isabelle and Niamh, St Raphaela's Secondary School, Dublin

SciFest@School EirGrid Climate and Delivering a Cleaner Energy Future Award

Click on the link or the photograph to view the message

Kayla Barron, NASA Astronaut, SpaceX Crew-3 & Expedition 66 sends video message to SciFest National Finalists