A student project to build a better, safer low cost cooking stove suited for use in developing countries has won the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition at the RDS.
Cork student Richard O’Shea become the Young Scientist for 2010 and along with a trophy receives the €5,000 top prize.
An 18-year-old sixth year from Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal in Blarney, Co Cork, Richard began working on his tin can stove 18 months ago. Three billion people, or half of the world’s population, use open fires and simple stoves to cook their food, he said.
Most are inefficient and produce large amounts of smoke which can cause illness. He wanted to build a very efficient stove with reduced smoke and increased efficiency for less fuel demand. His designs required no more than a few tin cans and he only used simple tools as might be available including a small knife, screwdriver and a nail.
The best group award was won by Paul McKeever (14), and Bryan Murphy (15), two fourth year students from Abbey Christian Brothers school in Newry, Co Down. They developed a clever detection system that would not allow heavy machinery such as drills and saws to work unless the operator was wearing safety glasses.
They built an ultrasound transmitter and electronics into ordinary safety glasses and built receivers into the machinery. If the glasses are absent the machinery won’t operate. Their prize includes a trophy and €2,400.
The runner-up individual prize worth €1,200 went to Hannah Eastwood of Loreto college Colerain, Co Derry for her research into “green rust” a useful mineral that can be used to take heavy metals such as chrome out of
drinking water. She developed a novel “lab friendly” method for producing the mineral, lepidocrocite, that is much easier compared to other methods.
The runner-up group award worth €1,200 went to Leona Chow and Mollieanne Gallagher of Alexandra College Dublin for a project looking at how caffeine can interfere with normal stomach digestion. The two 16-year-old transition year students conducted a series of test tube experiments to show how the main enzyme for digestion, pepsin, does not work as well if caffeine is present.