Cyclist stands tall at student awards

A young cyclist from Waterford raced to the top at the Student Enterprise Awards National Finals in Dublin yesterday with his invention — an upright bike stand.

Cathal Daly, a 16-year-old transition year student at De la Salle College, Co Waterford, won the senior category for his novel stand, the only one designed for racing bikes that holds them by the pedal.

A member of Commeragh Cycling Club and an woodwork student, Cathal said: “I was looking for a stand for my own bike and I wasn’t quite happy with what was on the market.”

He developed and produced the stand, which costs €25, last autumn. He has sold 20 to date and intends to expand.

“It is definitely adaptable — production can be outsourced and it can be scaled up to a more effective product,” he said.

Winners of the intermediate category were second-year students Leah Barry, 14, Áine Upton, 14, and Muireann Ní Tobin, 15, from Gaelcholáiste Uí Chonba, Newcastlewest, Co Limerick, who designed a multi-purpose whiteboard cleaner for teachers.

It even has a mirror on top of it so they can see the class behind them.

The device, Teacher’s PET, has a removable calculator with magnets, a protractor hidden underneath, two marker holders, and an extendable compass with a suction cup so it can stick to the board.

The girls fitted a piece of carpet underlay on the toolkit to clean the whiteboard.

Leah said they came up with the idea because one of their teachers was always forgetting stuff. “They cost €6.73 to make and we are selling them for €20 so we are making a very good profit,” she said

The junior category was awarded to a group of students who developed a collar to help protect sheep from dog attacks.

Emma McCabe, 13, Edel Campbell, 13, Zoe Maguire, 13 and Richardas Cepanauskas, 14 — first-year students at St Oliver Post Primary, Oldcastle, Co Meath — developed a collar that records the sheep’s pulse rate.

The device triggers an alarm when the pulse rate increases above normal levels for a sustained period of time. A message is then sent to the farmer’s phone that his or her sheep are in danger.

The price of the collar is €10 and the transmitter box costs €50. The students hope to have the product ready for the 2015 lambing season.

A record-breaking 17,000 students from 370 schools researched, set-up, and managed their real-life business for the biggest student enterprise programme in the country, organised by the County and City Enterprise Awards.