ARE YOU damaging your dog with kindness? Or feeding your feline into an early grave? Many of us are, according to a project that will be on display at the 2009 BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in January.
A record number of projects were submitted for this year’s event so the competition will be tougher than ever as students vie to become the Young Scientist of the Year.
As ever, the range and variety of projects is awe-inspiring, running from how you may be harming that favourite family pet to the movement of periwinkles along the foreshore, and from an analysis of organic foods to the development of an intelligent medical dressing that can give an early warning of infection.
Molly Gibson and Melissa O’Neill from Kinsale Community School will be at the annual exhibition at the RDS, Dublin, on January 7th with their project titled: “Are you loving your dog to death?” They conducted a survey looking at the high number of overweight dogs, brought to that condition by their over generous but misguided owners. Insufficient exercise and excessive weight can lead to disease and a shortened life.
An early analysis of their data indicates that the majority of dogs older than eight years are obese and that larger dogs are more likely to be over their proper weight than smaller breeds.
Bobby Tang, Michael Zhang and Richard Stewart from Belfast Royal Academical Institution are involved in an ambitious effort to develop “smart” medical dressings that can measure the level of infection in an open wound.
It allows a doctor to detect infection without having to remove the dressing. Dressings are regularly replaced to minimise infection, but this opens up the possibility of cross-infection. The team is focusing on specialised dressings for surgical wounds and are working towards a dressing for long-term use with an infection indicator for these types of wounds.
Sinéad McNamara and Megan Byrne from Mary Immaculate Secondary School, Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare, have taken on the challenge of studying the movement of Littorina littorea, periwinkles to you and me, on two types of foreshore.
They want to discover whether the transport of these small shellfish is affected by a sheltered or exposed shore. They also want to find how far they travel along the shore and whether they tend to migrate back towards their original starting point.
The project involves working along the shoreline, finding and marking periwinkles with various nail varnish colours and then resampling the different stretches of foreshore looking for marked periwinkles. Anamika Sukhdeo and Niamh Nutty from St Raphaela’s Secondary School, Stillorgan, Co Dublin, have set the difficult question in their project: “Are organic fruit and vegetables better for you?”
They are basing their research on vitamin C content, comparing levels in organic and non-organic fruit and veg. Foods tested include potatoes, tomatoes, orange juice, lemons, kiwis and apples.
This has kept them in the school lab, using a special indicator that tests for the presence of vitamin C. Early results suggest there is little difference, but averaged across the range of tests, organic comes out on top.
Philip Aitken of Árdscoil Rath Iomgháin in Rathangan, Co Kildare, took an engineering line for his project, designing and building a “terrorbot” robot fit for the kind of mayhem seen on the popular television programme, Robotwars.
He found “bits and pieces” for his robot, including a working angle grinder. He indicates that for exhibition at the RDS, the angle grinder will be switched off “for health and safety reasons”.
In the process he learned how to cut and solder metal and work with motorised equipment.
The exhibition has run for more than four decades and is the largest of its kind in Europe. It is important because it helps stimulate student interest in science, mathematics and engineering, states Chris Clark, chief executive officer of main sponsor BT. “Competing at the RDS gives students a remarkable insight into the practical side of these subjects in an interactive and fun way,” he said.
New records have been set for entry to the 2009 exhibition. It will accommodate 500 projects, but there were a record 1,616 projects entered, involving research undertaken by 3,712 students North and South.
The 500 were chosen in an initial selection process and judging at the exhibition will get under way on January 7th.