Coláiste Mhuire has 18 projects in Young Scientist exhibition

Eilís Ryan

A phenomenal 18 entries submitted by students from Coláiste Mhuire in Mullingar have been selected for participation in the Stripe Young Scientists and Technology Exhibition (SYSTE), which runs at the RDS on January 7-10, and at a special event held in the school on the Wednesday before the Christmas break, the boys got a taste of what the competition will be like.

“We had our STEM futures Industry Insight event where we had representatives from various industries in giving feedback on the projects,” explained teacher Eva Acton, who has in the past been named an Educator of Excellence for her work with SYSTE teams.

She predicts a Christmas during which the boys will continue tweaking and finalising their work ahead of the trip to Dublin.

“It’s definitely historic for us, we think, to have so many projects,” she says, adding that there are teams from every year in the school.

“We have from first year right the way up. We try to include all year groups. And within the STEM team, the collaboration is key. So there is the mentorship from the senior students, and then the invigoration from the junior students, bringing in the energy. It’s just a lovely atmosphere, a lovely team spirit.”

From early on in the school year, the school begins preparation for the competition: “Normally, at the start of the year, we have what we kind of call a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) ‘think-in’, and all the boys will come together and they’ll pitch ideas, and then other students will come on board and say, ‘oh, yeah, that’s great’. From that, the ideas are developed, and then we work on them,” says Eva.

The Young Scientist competition is just one of the branches of the STEM focus that is important to all at Coláiste Mhuire: “We also have our Microsoft Ambassadors; the ‘Ideas Made Real’ programme with 3D printing that we link with local industry with that; then the we also have a hydrogen cars project, VEX robotics… you name it.”

Remarkably, much of the effort is extracurricular and after school. “And we’ve really strong teacher support and mentorship from teachers, and the management are so supportive of us, so there’s a lovely team spirit here in the school,” says Eva.

Everything from invention to analysis features in the entries from Coláiste Mhuire this year, and among those who spoke to the Westmeath Examiner were fifth year students Sam O’Farrell from Collinstown and Connor Cassidy, Delvin.

Lameness in dairy cows can have a severe impact on animal welfare and farm profitability, leading to chronic pain for the animal and significant losses in milk yield for farmers, and that is the focus of the boys’ project Gaitkeeper, which uses automated technology to detect lameness in cows at an early stage.

Connor explained that lameness can have serious consequences if left untreated. “We actually looked into the effect that lameness has on milk yield,” he said. “We tracked two cows that calved at the same time. One was lame and one wasn’t. The lame cow produced 10 litres of milk, while the other produced 33 litres, a difference of 23 litres, which is a serious loss for the farmer.”

He added that the issue goes beyond production figures. “It’s also a serious health issue for the cow. They’re in chronic pain, they eat and drink less, and they want to lie down more because it’s uncomfortable for them to move.”

Sam outlined how Gaitkeeper works, describing it as an automated lameness detection system designed specifically for the dairy industry.

“Our project is automated lameness detection of cows,” he said. “It’s extremely important for farmers because a lot of what’s done now is manual and time-consuming. This speeds up the process, saves a lot of man-hours, and it’s innovative. It’s good for the future of farming.”

The system uses a Raspberry Pi board, an infrared sensor and a camera, with Python-based software analysing how a cow walks to determine whether it is lame.

Once lameness is detected, the system alerts the farmer directly.

Each cow is identified using a QR code attached to its ear, allowing individual animals to be tracked.

“The data is stored on an app that the farmer can view on their phone,” Conor explained. “You can see each cow individually, and you can also get an overview of the entire herd.”

GAA Grind

The pressures faced by young people involved in Gaelic games are examined by students Conor Seoige, Alex Markey and Daire Fagan in their project ‘GAA Grind – Strength, Struggle, Power and Pain’ which focuses on the challenge of balancing sport, education and social life for teenagers.

Conor said: “It’s about Gaelic games and trying to find a balance between life, social life, sport and education,” he said. “We wanted to see how young people are coping with that.”

As part of their research, the students carried out surveys with schools across the country using Google Forms. Alex Markey explained that the methodology was expanded this year to give a broader picture of the issue.

“Last year, because we’re an all-boys school, we only got data on boys,” he said. “This year, we decided to use inferential statistics, where you take smaller groups to understand the bigger picture.”

To ensure female students were represented, the group surveyed a neighbouring all-girls school.

“What we found was that it’s not just teenage boys who feel this pressure – girls feel it too,” Alex said.

Based on their findings, the students developed a practical solution in the form of a digital app designed to help reduce stress and manage workloads.

Daire Fagan said the app, called Performance Pulse, builds on a website the group created last year.

“We developed it into an app that mainly tracks schedules, training and gym work,” he said. “It allows you to track everything, especially if you’re involved with multiple panels like a county team, a school team and a club team.”

The app is designed to give coaches and managers an overview of a player’s commitments, helping to avoid over-training while still allowing players to meet academic demands.

“The manager from each team can see what you’re doing, so they won’t overwork you,” Daire said. “It also has an academic side, where you can track homework and study, so you can stay on top of everything and not fall behind.”

The students said the project highlights the growing demands placed on young athletes and the importance of managing physical and mental wellbeing alongside sporting ambition.

Politiclear

After questioning why many young people feel disengaged from politics and why voter turnout among younger age groups remains low, Mohab Mohamed, a fifth-year student, created Politiclear, a digital project aimed at helping young people better understand politics and engage more confidently with political news.

“The more I talked to my friends, the more I realised that young people just aren’t interested in politics,” Mohab said. “That made me ask why that is.”

To explore the issue, Mohab carried out surveys with students and also spoke to TD Sorcha Clarke, who represents the Longford Westmeath constituency.

Survey results showed that many young people find political news difficult to follow. Mohab said respondents felt coverage was often “too complicated, not organised and sometimes biased”.

In response, he designed an app that allows users to upload links to political articles, which are then analysed for language and bias.

“People can take links from articles and post them on the app or website,” he said. “The system checks for negative wording, bias and other factors, to help make the information clearer.”

Mohab tested the app by asking students to use it in a classroom setting. He said the reaction was positive.

“A lot of them felt the app made the news much clearer,” he said. “They were more inclined to look into politics and found it less boring and more interesting.”

While Mohab has a strong personal interest in politics and is considering it as a future career, he stressed that the app is designed to inform rather than influence.

“I can’t give my own opinions through it,” he said. “The whole idea is not to influence people, but to educate them.”

VisitWise

Long waiting times for GP appointments prompted transition year students Conor Geoghegan, Hugh Kennedy and Calum McHugh to look for a practical solution, and the result is ‘VisitWise’, an AI-powered symptom checker designed to help reduce pressure on GP services by advising patients when a doctor’s visit may not be necessary.

“The problem we’re trying to address is the waiting lists in Ireland for GPs. Our website works like a triage system and recommends whether you should visit a GP,” Conor explained.

Users enter their symptoms in the system, which then suggests whether they should rest at home or seek medical advice.

Hugh Kennedy explained how the system sources its medical information. He said the platform uses a combination of structured data and artificial intelligence.

“We have a CSV file with recommended over-the-counter medication, and we also have an API in the background,” he said. “That’s an AI system which gets results from the web.”

He stressed that the system is designed to guide users rather than diagnose conditions.

“You put in variables and fill in your medical history,” he said. “For example, if someone has asthma, the answer is curated for that. It never diagnoses – it just tells you what you should do, like whether you should stay at home or seek further help.”

When asked whether they had consulted medical professionals, the students revealed they are in the process of doing so.

“We haven’t spoken to doctors yet, but we plan to,” said Calum McHugh. “Later today, we’re actually going to be talking to a doctor.”

Calum said the idea for the project came from a personal experience involving a long wait for a minor medical issue.

“Hugh was waiting on the GP for ages for a minor complaint, and all he got was cream,” he said. “He could have just looked that up with this app, and it would have saved him time.”

The students say they hope VisitWise could help reduce unnecessary GP visits while ensuring that people who need medical attention are encouraged to seek it.

Scratching the Surface

The entry ‘Scratching the Surface’, developed by PJ Browne and Caleb Nagle, examines how the Scratch coding language influences learning and performance at Junior Cycle level, particularly in subjects such as maths and business.

“Our project is to examine how Scratch, as a coding language, has affected Junior Cert coding,” PJ explained.

The idea emerged during a coding class, when the students decided to look more closely at a language they were already using.

“We were bored one coding class, and we really liked this coding language, so we decided to do a bit of research on it,” PJ said.

As part of the project, the students investigated whether there was a link between performance in Scratch-based coding projects and results in other subjects. They focused in particular on maths and business.

“We tried to link how good people do in Scratch projects to how they do in maths and business,” PJ said. “We did that by running a Python script on how complex a project was and comparing that to how well the student does in maths or business.”

Caleb said the analysis showed a relationship between coding ability and mathematical performance.

“I would say that there was a correlation between the two,” he said.

The project also examined how students’ enjoyment of Scratch changes with age. According to the findings, interest in the platform tends to decline in the mid-teen years.

“We found out that Scratch sort of falls off in enjoyment around 14 or 15,” Caleb said. “That’s when students should be moving to other coding languages, like Python.”