The 2018 Salters’ Festival of Chemistry took place in U.C.C. on Wednesday 2nd May
Congratulations to our four First Year students Jimmy O’Riordan, Ali Kahn, Brian Donnelly & Timmy O’Riordan.
They came 3rd in the University Challenge.
As part of the challenge the students has to solve some puzzles using forensic techniques.
Well done to them and their teacher Ms. A. O’Mahony.
Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh students exhibited two projects in the Sci-Fest competition held in C.I.T. this Friday 20th April.
5th Year student Joel Abraham displayed his project “Flow Technology: Water Level Sensing Unit For Vehicles”.
Tony O’Halloran, 5th Year and Transition Year student Aidan Mamo Cooney, displayed a group project “Applications of Queuing Theory to CAHMS”.
This project won the SciFest 2018 Science Foundation Ireland Best Project Award.
Tony and Aidan have qualified to exhibit their project at the SciFest 2018 National Final which will take place in November.
The staff and students of Coláiste an Spioraid Naoimh are hugely proud of all the exhibitors and their achievements.
Mr. T. Kerins
Congratulations to our students and teachers
Our Fifth Year student, Tony O’Halloran won 3rd prize in his category of Senior Individual Chemical, Physical & Mathematical sciences and the Royal College of Surgeons special award.
Transition Year student Aidan Mamo Cooney was highly commended for his project.
Our First Year students Ben Maher, Ross O’Donovan & Timmy O’Riordan also did C.S.N. proud and received very positive feedback. Apparently they have started planning their entry for next year!
It was a brilliant achievement for the students to be chosen to present their projects at the B.T. Young Scientist Exhibition and they were fantastic representatives for C.S.N.
The students describe their projects below:
Applications of Queuing Theory to the Public Orthodontic Treatment System:
My project looks at the applications queuing theory to the Irish Public Orthodontic Treatment System (IPOTS). Queuing Theory is a branch of applied mathematics which uses probability theory and Markov chains to model queues. By creating a model of the IPOTS I was able to simulate the effects of potential policy changes. Currently there are no published methods of doing this other than trial and error. My project creates a highly accurate tool which allows decision makers to make more informed choices regarding public policy in healthcare.”
Tony O’Halloran (5th year)
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A Network Model To Analyse Peer Learning:
This project involves applying the mathematics of Network Theory to the learning networks present in a group of 6th years in CSN. I am mapping these networks in order to better understand how they are formed between students when they communicate regarding study or homework. My research has led to some surprising results which I am currently analysing by calculating specific aspects regarding to the elements of the two. These results will allow me to reach some conclusions which in turn will allow me to make suggestions in order to make peer to peer learning more effective. This should improve learning methods in schools and make education easier for a larger range of students.
Aidan Mamo Cooney (4th year)
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Microorganism’s Reaction to Light and Sound:
Two other first year students – Timmy O Riordan and Ross O Donovan – and I are attending the BT Young Scientist Competition 2018. Our project title is ‘Microorganisms reaction to light and sound’. We are growing microorganisms in the lab and seeing how different amounts of light and different frequencies of sound affect the growth of the microorganisms.
Ben Maher (N. Fionnbarra)
Well done and congratulations again to the students and their teachers from all in C.S.N.
The main competition awards at ISEF’17 were on Friday morning. In these our 6th Year student Cormac Larkin was awarded a second place in the Physics and Astronomy category.
This is another outstanding achievement for him as there were more than 1700 projects in total at the competition. Furthermore he will have the honour of having an asteroid named after him.
Congratulations Cormac from all in C.S N.
Cormac Larkin (6th year) is currently one of four students from the island of Ireland attending the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2017 held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles California. The competition is by invitation only and Cormac was in invited as a consequence of his achievement in winning the Intel Award at the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition earlier this year.
Cormac’s project “Case Study of Data Mining in Observational Astronomy: The Search for New OB Stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud” involves a new method of searching for a particular type of star from openly available astronomical data. He has increased the total existing known number of these stars by about 10%. His method is currently the only systematic process for finding these and their distribution and presence has significant implications for the formation and structure of our Universe.
On Tuesday Cormac was invited to attend the Alumni Lunch. He was one of a very small number of participants invited to speak briefly in front of the entire audience at the Entrepreneur and Excellence in Science and Technology panel.
Wednesday involved a day of intensive judging and interviews after which the participants unwound with an exclusive all-expenses evening at the Universal Studios theme park!
We at Colaiste an Spioraid Naoimh are very proud that Cormac and his accompanying teacher Mr. Kerins are representing our school and our country at this prestigious competition.
C.S.N. Robotics Competes in DELL/EMC VEX WORLDS competition in Lousiville Kentucky
On the 18th April eight students accompanied by Ms. Walsh packed their bags and flew out to Kentucky via Chicago. We had won the national finals in the Dell/EMC Vex Robotics Competition held at the CIT in January, and we were preparing to compete in the World Vex Robotics Competition. The robot had been upgraded and painted and the team had practiced extensively in the run up to the trip.
We had a few days to ourselves on arrival and these were spent making the final touches to the robot, seeing the sights, and enjoying some tourist activities. We went on a shopping trip to the outlet center, saw a baseball game and went to downtown Louisville. We were also treated to a trip of the Flex Ltd. facility in Louisville, learning about the business and what products and companies they work with. Flex was responsible for shipping the robot and also gave the students an extensive tour and a great lunch, going above and beyond as a sponsor.
Day 1 of the competition was hectic with registration and setup as over 500 individual teams from all over the world were entering were . Once those were sorted the robot was sent for inspection and passed with flying colors. The team participated in the driver skills part of the competition which went well. Day 2 of the competition began with the parade of nations, with the boys and a giraffe walking out in front of the entire competition waving the Irish flag, there was an electric atmosphere in the convention center and the team were ready to jump into their first match. The tournament got off to a great start with a decisive victory for the robot. The competition was fierce on day 3 with a mix of wins and losses. Day 4 found the team finishing around mid-level in the competition. We watched an amazing final and were delighted as the overall winners came from our own division.
We are very grateful to all of the companies that sponsored us and enabled us to attend this competition. Please see school Facebook page for full list and for more details on the robot, the team and the trip. The travelling students were: Daniel Murphy, Sean Cronin, Aaron McGee, Harry Moran, Kevin O’ Regan, Matthew Cronin, Jamie O’Leary and Elvinas Seporatis
-Aaron McGee
This year the C.S.N. Robotics Team has been very successful in the Vex Robotics competition.
Previous Vex Robotics teams have done very well in the National Competition. In 2015 they managed to reach the semi-finals & in 2016 they also reached the semi finals and won the Design award.
This year however has been the most successful so far!
We have won four out of the six available awards: – The Tournament Champion, – Excellence, – Robot Skills and Partner of the Year awards. and we have been undefeated in both the scrimmage and the National Competition.
We have now qualified to participate in the Vex World Competition. On the 16th of April, the team will travel to Louisville, Kentucky. Thanks to the very generous sponsorship we have received from many companies, the team has raised enough money to allow 8 members of the team and one of our teachers, Ms. Walsh, to travel to Louisville.
To further our chances in the World Championship, the team have had to completely redesign our robot. We have replaced all of the steel with aluminium which has made the robot lighter and enables it to lift itself. We have also made a very effective claw which allows the robot to comfortably score multiple game objects at once and changed the lift so as to have more momentum and torque which makes the robot very effective at lifting itself and game objects.
With all of these changes and upgrades in place, we hope to continue our run of success in the World Championship.
The team members travelling to America are: Matthew Cronin, Harry Moran, Kevin O’Regan, Jamie O’Leary, Daniel Murphy, Seán Cronin, Elvinas Seporitas & Aaron Magee.
Please click on the following link to watch the teams reveal video for the World Competition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WxYr8nYThY
– Matthew Cronin
On Tuesday the 31st of January Ms. Hanlon, Joel and I travelled to Dublin after being invited to present my project on Portion Sizes to the Junior Minister for Health at the Dail.
After a brief excursion to Trinity College and Grafton Street we made our way to Leinster House. There we were greeted by the Minister’s Private Secretary and invited to dine in the TD’s restaurant as Minister Corcoran Kennedy had been called to the Seanad. After a quick scone and cup of tea we were escorted through the Dail, past the chamber where we witnessed some heated debate and onto the Minister’s office.
During our hour long meeting we covered all elements of my project during which the Minister was very interested in my recommendations in how we can educate people on portion size and give them the knowledge they need to make informed decisions. She also loved the logo I have been using for my project which was designed by Joel (Thanks Joel!). She has also taken two copies of my project to pass onto the Minister for Health and the in house Dietician.
After some quick photographs we left in time to grab a quick bite to eat and catch our bus home. I am very much looking forward to continue working to raise awareness about the “portion problem”.
Tony O’Halloran, 4th Year
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