Eva Kelly (12) from Milltown, Co Dublin, with her SciFest project "Solar Cooking"
Mark Chapple (13) and Jack Cummins (13) from St Joseph’s Secondary School, Rush, Co Dublin, with their project "Can wind power charge my phone or battery?"
Griffin Gillanders (13), Alison Rudden (12) and Rachel Claffey (13) from Alexandra College, Milltown, Co Dublin, with their project "The Studies of Gloop"
(Click on each image above for larger version)
About 2,000 second-level students will compete in SciFest 2010 over the next month at events taking place in 14 Institutes of Technology across Ireland.
SciFest is a national festival of science organised regionally in collaboration with these colleges and is open to all second-level students.
It builds on the success of the BT Young Scientist & Technology exhibition, and provides an additional forum for students to present and display the results of their scientific investigations.
Student projects
The first event of the nationwide competition took place today in Dublin Institute of Technology. Among the projects on display at DIT Kevin Street were:
- A study on whether gaming affects your personality
- A project examining whether texting makes students’ spelling worse
- Whether the weather affects a person’s mood
- A project using wind energy to charge a phone battery
- How to improve the safety and comfort standards of the Mycro hurling helmet
Nationwide events
SciFest is locally based, making it accessible to students and allowing them to view the facilities and courses available in their local Institute of Technology.
The next SciFest 2010 fairs will be held at:
- Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (20 April)
- Waterford Institute of Technology (20 April)
- Athlone Institute of Technology (23 April)
- Cork Institute of Technology (27 April)
- Limerick Institute of Technology (27 April)
- Institute of Technology Carlow (5 May)
- Dundalk Institute of Technology (5 May)
- Institute of Technology Sligo (6 May)
- Institute of Technology, Tallaght (7 May)
- Tipperary Institute (11 May)
- Institute of Technology Blanchardstown (12 May)
- Institute of Technology Tralee (12 May)
- Letterkenny Institute of Technology (14 May)
- The Millennium Forum, Derry (21 May)
Discover Sensors
As part of each SciFest event taking place in the Institutes of Technology there will be an additional Discover Sensors award.
This is given to a student science project which demonstrates a high level of application of investigative science methodologies that include the innovative use of one or more digital sensors for recording experimental data.
Each project entering the Discover Sensors Award must keep a blog of their SciFest project on Project Blogger. The SciFest initiative is jointly funded by Intel and Discover Science & Engineering as project partners.
Learn more
Find out more about your local events at Scifest.ie
Learn more about the Discover Sensors project
Visit the Project Blogger website
