THE IRISH MIND
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evaluated an easyway bywhich the consumer can tellwhether food has gone off,” said the judges. “Using classi- calmicrobiological techniques,Aisling established that at a range of household temperatures,more bacteria grow, pro- ducingmore acid. She used this pro- duction of acid by the bacteria to develop a food spoilage indicator kit. This kitmay alert consumers to the fact that the food has been left at too high a temperature andmay present a potential hazard. This very impressive project demonstrated to us a highly in- novative and creative use of experimen- tal biology, togetherwith a very novel use of technology.” Somalian-bornAbdusalam
Abubakar, a third-year student from CBS Synge Street, took the top prize in 2007 for ‘An extension ofWiener’sAt- tack on RSA’. The judges said he hadmastered
enormously complexmathematics which limit the security of encrypted digital and internetmessages. “Encryp- tionmeans changing the letters of a message into a string of numberswhich havemeaning only to the person that knows the key.He has developed fur- ther conditions restricting the design of safe keys. Security keys are chosen using very large numbers andAb- dusalamhas increased the security of keys by improving the rigour of the en- cryption process. For a student still in second level, such command and in- sight into cutting edgemathematical research is remarkable.” Emer Jones, a second-year student
fromPresentation School, Traleewon the title in 2008 for her examination of the use of nativematerials to enhance the stability of emergency sandbag shelters used in disaster relief. “Based on the award-winning sandbag shelter developed byNaderKhalili of the Cal- Earth Institute, Emer examinedwhat materials could help the shelters stand up to earthquakes and high-winds,” said the judges. “Emerwas able to demonstrate that usingwood or bam- boo sticks between the layers instead of the normal barbedwiremethod could deliver the same stability atmuch re- duced cost. This alsomade deployment of sheltersmuch faster as thesemateri- als aremore readily available."
stove for use in developing countries,” said the judges. “Over two billion peo- ple in theworld depend on stoves to cook theirmeals every day, and his project built a newonewhich uses as little fuel as possible andwhich ideally produces no smoke. Richardmade a strong impression on the judgeswith his detailed research into the chemical processes involved in burning timber, andwith the various designs he came upwith using very simplematerials such as tin cans and nailswhich are very easy to find in ThirdWorld coun- tries.” The 2011winner of the award, Castle-
knock College’sAlexanderAminiwho developed a tennis sensor data analysis tool, also picked up a top prize in the 23rd EuropeanUnion Contest for Young Scientists. His prize-winning project is an auto-
Young Scientistwinner (1978) Donald McDonnell
Thewinners in 2009were JohnD
O’Callaghan and LiamMcCarthy, sec- ond-year students fromKinsale Com- munity School, Co Cork, for ‘The development of a convenient test method for somatic cell count and its importance inmilk production’. Sons of farmers, the boyswere concernedwith the financial losses incurred ifmilk sold fromtheir farms had high contents of somatic cells. They discovered that if a small amount of detergent ismixed with a fresh sample ofmilk themixture becomes progressivelymore viscous as the somatic cell content of themilk
rises.Using this knowledge they devel- oped a simple apparatus that could be used by farmers to quickly test themilk and determine its status. “Thiswill be of tremendous commercial help to farmers and is amarketable product. Thuswhat they have achieved is utterly practical and brilliant in its simplicity,” said the judges. In 2010, Richard O’Shea followed
Sarah Flannery to become the second student fromScoilMhuire Gan Smal in Blarney, Co Cork towin the top prize for his project ‘Abiomass fired cooking stove for developing countries”. “Richard received the prestigious
honour for his pioneeringwork on the design of a biomass-fueled cooking
mated systemformacromotion refine- ment. In this study,Amini collected and analysed gigabytes of tennis sensor data.He discovered a technique for au- tomatically distinguishing between 13 different tennis stroke types using only inertial datawith accuracy averaging over 96pc, and implemented his tech- nique as computer software.His find- ings are relevant to a variety ofmotion assessment scenarios in sports, physi- cal therapy and emergency responses. This year’s overallwinnerswere
Synge Street Leaving Cert students EricDoyle andMarkKelly for the proj- ect ‘Simulation accuracy in the gravita- tionalmany-body problem’. “The project develops a novelmathematical approachwhich has a diverse range of applications fromsatellite placement to predicting network congestion in telecommunications,” said Prof Pat Guiry,whowas head judge in the chem- ical, physical andmathematical sci- ences category. “In the opinion of the judging panel,
an exceptional level ofmathematical proficiencywas demonstrated. Starting fromEuler’s investigation in 1760 on the motion of planets, they simulated this complicated ‘many-body’ problem using advanced computation and evaluated the accuracy of the solutions. Of particular note, they included an in-built accuracy estimation in their solution.”
Issue 4 Spring/Summer 2012 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW 77
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