A student from Limerick City has taken the 2005 Esat BT Young Scientist of the Year award for a new programming language for the internet.
Sixteen-year-old Patrick Collison from Castletroy College took the honour for his project, CROMA: A New Dialect of LISP. He was presented with his award at a special ceremony on Friday evening by President Mary McAleese and Bill Murphy, CEO of Esat BT. He received a cheque for €3,000 and a Waterford Crystal trophy. He will go on to represent Ireland at the Eurepean Young Scientists competition in Moscow next September.
The group prize went to a pair of students from Synge Street in Dublin, whose project, The Numerical Solutions of Hamilton’s Equations, examined the equations of Irish mathematican William Rowan Hamilton.
The runner-up award in the individual competition went to Newry student Kevin O’Reilly whose project investigated the feeding behaviour of freshwater shrimp. The group runner-up prize was presented to Claire Conaghan, Aine Mulcahy and Sean Liston of Desmond College, Newcastlewest, Co Limerick, who developed an improved type of cat’s eye responsive to icy road conditions.
This year’s Esat BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition received the highest number of entries in the competition’s 41 year history. A record total of 1,064 projects were submitted, up 22pc on last year.
By Brian Skelly
