Student Jeremy Rigney from Banagher College in Co Offaly
With 550 projects on show at this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition in Dublin, a selection of students explained all about their research in the following video.
First up is transition-year student Ciarán O’Mara from Castletroy College, Limerick. Ciarán has developed a portable solar power tracker, with the aim of tracking the sun over a day.
In his demo, Ciarán explains how his tracker powers two motors that work by rotating the solar panel a well as powering his battery charger. His future plan is to condense the solar panel down so that it can fit onto the back of a smartphone and used in sunnier climates to charge phones.
Then we talked to second-year students Roisin Kelly, Rebecca McArdle and Clodagh Knell from St Vincent’s Secondary School in Co Louth.
The three students have been working on a project to investigate the properties of ‘human battery power’.
Roisin explains how they set up different circuits and tested various metals and situations using the power of human touch to generate electricity.
Finally, we talk to avid computer programmer Jeremy Rigney from Banagher College in Co Offaly. His project is all about investigating whether games-based learning is more effective than traditional classroom methods to help students grasp maths concept.
Jeremy used the Scratch program to develop his game-based platform, which he tested out with students.
Watch the video here.
