AT MIDDAY ON Tuesday, the RDS Main Hall is colonnaded with empty stalls, and patrolled by staff who don’t have very much to do.
By this time on Thursday, the hall will be packed with students, teachers, parents, judges, politicians, business leaders and science enthusiasts, as the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition begins in earnest.
The showcase of Ireland’s rising stars in STEM has become a staple of Ireland’s cultural calendar, and it returns from its virtual Covid wilderness this week for the first time since 2020.
Walking the RDS hall, I fondly recall my dad leading me from exhibit to exhibit, encouragingly telling me that once I got to secondary school that I too could use my brain to form ideas worthy of these hallowed stalls. He was wrong, of course. I ended up as a journalist with virtually no transferrable skills and soon the same AI that these Gen-Zniuses are perfecting will turn me and my kind into human batteries obsolete for anything besides my energy juice like in the Matrix, but it’s a nice memory.
Even now, as I read through the several hundred strong list of potentially award-winning projects, I am startled by how incapable I feel.
The titles of some projects, even in the junior and intermediate categories, are complicated enough to make a former humanities student cry. Using piezoelectric crystals to generate electricity; Treatment of myocardial infarction using magnetic fields.
I don’t even know how to treat myocardial infarction using traditional methods.
Speaking to The Journal, The head of the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition Mari Cahalane, said: “Nothing beats being back in person, especially for the students, for our own team and for the judges. We’ve seen a trend of students investigating things that have an immediate impact on their lives. The students are so innovative and brilliant that we never know what we’re going to get until we see it.”
One young man, Evan Pollard from St Joseph’s Secondary School in Rush, has designed software that improves detection of colourblindness in early age children through a series of computer games.
“We tested it on kids from the local primary school, Gaelscoil Ros Eo, and the feedback has been great so far. The mams and dads have all been talking about it, so it’s really promising. If I can use my technology and diagnose it early then a kid can gradually learn to work with it.”
Pollard, a fifth year, came second in his category last year, and says: “If I get any place this year, I’ll be chuffed.”
Two second-year girls from Malahide Community School share the same spirit. Their project sought to test how sustainable sources of clothing dyes, such as turmeric and grass, against commercial dyes.
“We realised that not every plant would stain, but some of our more successful ones were turmeric, where it actually got darker after being washed, as well as beetroot and blueberries.”
Asked if they were feeling competitive ahead of the judging sessions, which begin tomorrow, one student said she was “just looking forward to the experience,” before her teammate added that “winning would be a nice bonus”. Their teacher praised the project as student-led, and said that the girls had earned their few days off school through their hard work – noting that for the last two years, students have simply had to give their presentations from empty classrooms before returning to their ordinary schoolday.
Even the Young Scientist does not escape the cultural climate, however. Students from Coláiste Pádraig CBS in Dublin have worked on an algorithm to predict future house prices. Sustainability is common theme throughout each category, with projects on replacing plastic, easing food crises and renewable energy all popular.
It is a festival like no other, in that sense. It sets a workforce of hundreds upon solving problems the rest of us often ignore.
Dr Tony Scott, who co-founded the exhibition in 1965, told The Journal: “They’re professionals. They’re able to communicate, and that’ll stand to them through all their careers, in a way you can’t teach from a book.”
Scott still serves as a judge in the Chemical, Physical and Mathematical Sciences category, using three criteria: “What did you set out to do? How did you do it? And what did you find?”
President Michael D Higgins will be present on Wednesday to officially open the fair, before the public is permitted to explore the hundreds of projects from Thursday onwards.
“Ireland has gone on to win first place in the European Union Contest for Young Scientists 17 times in 33 years so we’re doing something right, and all of those winners have come from this competition. That’s the sort of thing that gets me out of bed, year after year.”
One only hopes that there are safeguards in place to prevent any of these genius children from becoming the next Elon Musk.
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