Three student inventors have come up with a way to make gas and water pipes earthquake-proof. They believe their system could help to save lives by reducing the risk of contaminated water supplies and fires.
The Esat Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition always delivers fresh ideas, but Niamh Hogan (12), Rachel Gogan (12) and Clare Fletcher (13) of Loreto High School, Beaufort, Dublin, are an unexpected source for advice on earthquakes.
Clare got the idea after hearing her teacher describe the problems that follow an earthquake, many of them associated with ruptured pipes. She came up with a multi-part design which involves a gas pipe inside a trough which is shaped like a rain gutter. The pipe sits on a number of ball-shaped rollers, allowing it to ride smoothly over the trough when the ground starts to shake.
The three collaborators, all first years, also designed a four-layer pipeline that would resist breakage. They tested its durability and crush endurance in a number of ways. They have no immediate plans to pursue a patent but would like to see it used first in Third World countries at risk of earthquake damage.
An altogether different challenge was tackled by Kyle Parfrey (16), a fifth-year student from CBC Cork. He wanted to study chaos by finding it in the dynamics of a chemical reaction but had to come up with new methods for keeping track of what the reaction was doing.
"The idea is to study the chlorite-thiosulphate reaction," he explained, not from a chemical point of view but as an oscillating chaotic system. "Does it exhibit chaotic behaviour, which is a specific thing?" he added, not just a term for disorganised.
He chose a chemical reaction as a chaotic system because it operates outside any human intervention. "It is pretty much a naturally occurring system" that proceeds on its own.
He used ultraviolet light to monitor the changes in the reaction and then computer software to see if his theoretical computations matched the test results.
The future of computers will rely not on electricity but on light, according to David M. O'Doherty (16), a transition year student at Gonzaga College, Dublin. He proved it by developing "optical logic gates", computer switches that work using light rather than electricity.
Computer speeds have increased greatly because of miniaturisation but there are inherent limits to this, he explained. "An alternative system has to be found to increase processing speeds."
Light provided the answer, he said. He developed three alternative optical systems all based on laser light and found that one in particular offered promise. He built an oversized prototype to demonstrate its function but said that the necessary components would first have to be miniaturised before a usable device could be developed.
