Last week saw the 46th annual BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition held at the RDS in Dublin. The exhibition itself was the final stage in the competition which is open to all second level students from Ireland, both North and South. As well as the 520 student projects on display, there were a further four exhibition halls filled with science and technology based exhibits and entertainment, making it a thrilling event for those who entered and for general visitors too.

Richard O’Shea, 18 year old sixth year student from Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal, Blarney, Co Cork has been named the winner of the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2010 with his project entitled, “A biomass fired cooking stove for developing countries”. The announcement was made by Minister for Science, Technology, Innovation & Natural Resources with special responsibility for the Knowledge Society, Conor Lenihan TD, and Chris Clark, CEO, BT Ireland, at the awards ceremony held this evening at the RDS, Dublin 4.  Richard entered in the Technology category, Senior section.

Minister Lenihan, accompanied by Chris Clark, presented Richard with a cheque for €5,000, a Waterford Crystal trophy and the opportunity to represent Ireland at the 21st European Union Contest for Young Scientists taking place in Lisbon, Portugal this coming September.

Chris Clark, CEO, BT said “It has been an incredibly successful exhibition and we are delighted that schools from both the Republic and Northern Ireland have won top prizes. The 2010 exhibition has really resonated with those that participated this year, perhaps due to the increasing realisation that its focus on skills and innovation has never been as important for our economic growth. It certainly stands out as a breakthrough year for entrepreneurship with a large number of students seeing for themselves the commercial potential of their work. We believe Richard’s innovative idea, for example, has huge potential to become a commercial success, and we hope the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition will prove the catalyst for this.”

Leonard Hobbs, Chief Judge, Technology category said, “Richard received the prestigious honour for his pioneering work on the design of a biomass-fueled cooking stove for use in developing countries. Over 2 billion people in the world depend on stoves to cook their meals every day, and his project built a new one which uses as little fuel as possible and which ideally produces no smoke. Richard made a strong impression on the judges with his detailed research into the chemical processes involved in burning timber, and with the various designs he came up with using very simple materials such as tin cans and nails which are very easy to find in Third World countries. An added bonus is that his stoves can be built using simple tools such as a Swiss army knife. Richard impressed us with both his science knowledge and the engineering skill he showed in his construction work.”

1,135 students competed with 509 projects from 32 counties across Ireland. See the full press release for winners in other categories.

Click here to view our special feature about the exhibition in i-studentadvisor Ireland, including an address from the Gerry Murray, Chief Executive of the IOTI (Institutes of Technology Ireland), sponsors of the World of Robots.