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A YOUNG SCIENTIST project is already attracting attention from NGOs even before it has gone on display.
Anna O’Connor (17) from St Angela’s College in Cork is developing a device to help with education in refugee camps and in the developing world.
It consists of solar panels and a lead acid battery from an alarm or car, with a Raspberry Pi – a tiny and cheap computer – to provide processing power.
It’s intended to be used in locations where a data connection is unavailable, and the teaching aids can be loaded on to the device in advance and displayed on an external screen.
Anna, who is working on the project with her teacher Clare O Donovan, said she wanted to achieve something more out of her young scientist project, having entered the competition two years in a row previously.
“I’ve asked had a huge interest in technology,” Anna explained, “but I’ve also started gaining interest in humanitarianism, and I follow people like Malala [Yousafzai].”
“I wanted to do a project that could help people rather than just one for the sake of doing a project.”
The feedback on the initial stages of the project have been positive, Anna said.
Although similar tools exist to help in areas where electricity and data are in short supply, few are tailored towards education, Anna says, and she wanted to target this gap.
Ahead of the exhibition, she hopes to secure a patent or at least patent pending status for the device, and develop a smaller, handheld version with a lithium-ion battery.
We’ll have more coverage of projects ahead of the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition.
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This is a fabulous story; In school we learnt about Edward Jenner/Brunel/Stevenson etc (who indeed were extremely important) but why are we never taught about the advances made by Irish people whether it happened at home or abroad. If we knew more about the innovation and creativity that was driven by them, it might make us a more entrepreneurial people, and not so dependent on others to come in and fill that gap.
Why is there not a museum in this country dedicated to these people?
Not on the list but:
Parsons Family (Birr Co. Offaly) – Giant Telescopes and the steam turbine (although C.A. Parsons was born in London)
Robert Boyle (Lismore, Co. Waterford) – noted for investigating the relationship between pressure and volume of a gas: hence Boyle’s Law (P inversely proportional to V)
George Boole (UCC, Cork – born in England) – his abstract form of algebra, later refined, forms the mathematical basis of the modern electronic circuit.
Because no one has invented that yet, sorry you just did, well done!
Irish? Not really. Anglo-Irish or British, really.
We were never British no matter way you want to word it. Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. We were never British. To be British you would have to be born in England, Wales or Scotland.
Great to see Rynd acknowledged at last. Other “ingenious Irish” inventions include… the stereo stethoscope, the submarine, the periscope, and the steam turbine that makes widespread electricity possible!
(We’ve lots more Irish inventions in our list here too: http://ingeniousireland.ie/2011/02/how-the-ingenious-irish-changed-the-world/)
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