As part of his study on video games, Richard Arnold (13) went into video games shops and tried to buy over-18s games. He did this with no difficulty. He then got his eight-year-old brother to try to purchase over-15s games, which he too did successfully.
This aspect of the study was the only issue that surprised Richard and Brian Attley (13), from St Michael's College in Dublin.
They found that of the 192 young people interviewed at random on the streets, the average number of video game playing time for boys was 6.4 hours a week and 2.9 hours for girls.
Even the 8 per cent of people who said they played video games for 15 hours a week did not cause surprise. Of the 52 parents interviewed by the boys, most said they considered the games more beneficial than television.
Richard and Brian tried to find a correlation between playing violent video games and blood pressure and pulse reaction. However, this proved inconclusive and in some cases, they found blood pressure decreased and pulses slowed down when the subjects played violent games.
Another project involving surveys found that men were twice as likely as women to get angry while driving. The study on road rage by Hugh O'Neill (13), Patrick Doyle (14) and Sean Tracey (13), from the Catholic University School in Dublin, involved 50 motorists monitoring their own behaviour and reactions in a car over a two-week period.
Women drivers were four times more likely to receive a reaction from other motorists than men and the thing that really made male motorists angry was traffic jams. While women fumed when drivers jumped red lights and took up too many parking spaces, men did not like being obstructed on their journey.
Were the boys shocked by their findings? Certainly not. "You don't want to be in traffic with my dad," said Patrick. One invention that might reduce road rage is a brake light and indication system for bicycles designed by Barry Walsh (18), Raymond McNamara (18) and Joseph Muldowney (17) from St Paul's Secondary School, Monasterevin, Co Kildare.
The three students did some research on bike safety and discovered that most motorists said that being able to see bikes better and knowing what they might do next would improve safety on the roads.
The project involved fixing lights to the front and back of a mountain bike which could be operated by the cyclist from the handlebars. It took between four and five months to complete.
A project on car speeding showed that 54 per cent of motorists went over the speed limit. Edel Collins (13), Theresa Fallon (14) and Finnian O'Connor (14), from Scoil Mhuire, Strokestown, Co Roscommon, said that most motorists they spoke to were not aware they were speeding.
The study also showed that 78 per cent of motorists went over the speed limit in a 30 m.p.h zone and 83 per cent went over the limit in a 40 m.p.h zone.
The students went out with local gardai to monitor speeding and then were able to borrow a speed monitor for an independent study. They monitored the speeding of about 1,600 motorists.