Winners
of BT Young Scientist 2008
Primary
Section
Report
by Liam and James
Mr. O'Flynn and some of his winning class
Mr. O'Flynn and some of the winning class
The
atmosphere was overwhelming, as we strode our way through the buzzing people to
our classes stand in the commercial area of the R.D.S main hall.
At
10 o’clock, our first shift got under way. In this shift, there were the
following people: James, Fintan, Oisín, Kevin, David, Thomas, Killian, Fergal,
Joe and Caolan. They were tremendous, especially because they were first up and
they hadn’t the advantage of watching other people from our class. They went
up to strangers full of confidence and asked and talked about our project:
Albert Einstein.
Our
Albert Einstein project was mainly factual but there was a concept experiment.
We studied Einstein non stop for a week and over Christmas period we looked into
him. We wrote slideshows about him and presented them on laptops next to our
stand. Our project was based on the theory of relativity. We got an old bed
sheet (thanks Stephen for supplying one for us) and inserted a shot put ball
into the middle which made a dint in the sheet. The ball represented the sun and
next, we got a marble and rolled it round the outside of the sun, as if it was
Mercury orbiting the sun. Einstein had discovered this theory. Before him, all
the scientist were baffled on why Mercury wobbled slightly on it’s axis,
Einstein discovered it was because of the sun slightly pulling it in. What a
theory at that time and age, this man was clearly ahead of his time.
There
were three different shifts for different groups of people before we continued
from the people who started. While you were not on your shift, you were free to
roam round the stands and the games and the café’s. It was great crack. As
the hall quietened in the afternoon, we packed up ready to go, the last of us
leaving a five o’clock. It had been a great day, and we knew it could only get
better.
At
1.15, the time came. It was the time for us to make our way through the crowds
to the BT arena where the award ceremony would take place. After a short show,
one of the judges announced the winners. She said that the results were in no
particular order, and the she called out “Our first prize goes to…
St.
Josephs B.N.S Terenure for Giants of Science: Albert Einstein”. We jumped up
with joy and made our way to the stage and collected our prizes, a trophy and
digital camera. After some pictures we sat back down and watched the rest of the
ceremony. When it was over we headed back to the stand to tell the others the
news. It was a great day.
We
would like to thank all the people who helped us: Mr. Donnelly for helping us
with the computer, Mr. Ring for supporting us but especially to, Mr. O’Flynn
who got us a great stands and helped us greatly in our research.
