Student scientists set out stall at RDS

AMBITIOUS young boffins began setting up their stalls yesterday as hundreds of pupils put the final touches to their science projects for this year’s BT Young Scientist of the Year competition.

A record 1,416 projects were entered for this year’s competition.

Eager students from Dublin schools were first to carry their works into the RDS yesterday, registering and setting up stalls.

Nerves were calm among class colleagues but they needed to be, with 500 finalist projects set to be judged at stands over the coming days.

The BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition 2008 will run until Saturday. Pupils from outside Dublin will converge on the capital today and begin setting up their projects for inspection.

Judging will then begin by the afternoon and run until Friday. However, doors will only open to the public tomorrow, with an awards ceremony on Friday, with Education Minister Mary Hanafin as the guest of honour.

Chair of the judges and BT’s director of consumer business, Emer Kennedy, yesterday praised the work put in by the students: “There are predominantly more groups than individuals as well as more female than male entries. Also we have people coming from 31 counties. There is a super-high standard. It’s really mesmerising how they get their heads around topics.”

The theme of the competition this year centres around climate control and a number of exhibits for visitors to interact with will include a simulation of conditions at Antarctica, where people can feel what it’s like to be at -20C.

Almost 36,000 people are expected to attend exhibits during the week. In previous years, several winners have gone on to represent and win accolades for Ireland in the EU Young Scientist Contest.

Abdusalam Abubakar, last year’s winner, attended the opening day at the RDS yesterday as pupils set up. Following his win last year, the student from CBS, Synge Street, Dublin, went on to take first prize in mathematics at the EU competition in Spain.

The 17-year-old advised pupils how to draw out the good judging marks.

“You need a really good idea, a topical project with nice results, something new, and then it’s about how you present it to the judges.”

This year will see the competition enter its 44th year. Some 210 schools will take part in the competition over the coming days.

Exhibitors will be made up of 98 projects in the chemical, physical & mathematical sciences category; 149 projects in the biological and ecological sciences category; 66 in the technology category and 198 projects in the social and behavioural sciences.