"Inventors Grow in Schools" is the title of an initiative aimed at
stimulating interest in engineering for second-level students. The
initiative organised by John McSweeney, Innovation Facilitator,
Department of Process & Chemical Engineering, UCC seeks to show
Transition Year secondary school students how systematic thinking and
technical skills can be deployed to solve everyday problems and
generate product ideas. Each group of students was taught the
basic principles of TRIZ (the theory of inventive problem solving)
which they then applied to invent new product ideas. The groups
selected a target and organized a company with all executive roles
attributed to different students. According to John McSweeney "this
programme is designed to lead to a greater interest in Science and
Engineering and hence address the shortfall of Irish Engineers and
Scientists in our workforce."
The programme which commenced as a pilot scheme in 2003-2004 with
students from Mount St Michael's, Rosscarbery and Presentation Brothers
College, Cork extended in 2004-2005 to include eight schools in Cork
and Kerry. The schools which participated in 2005-2006 were:
Presentation Brothers College, Mount St Michael Rosscarbery, Coláiste
Treasa Kanturk, St Aidan's Community College Dublin Hill, North
Presentation Secondary School, Cobh Community College, Kinsale
Community School and Mayfield Community School.
The course culminated in an awards ceremony at UCC where eight projects
battled for the prize of the AIB TRIZ Cup for Innovation and
Entrepreneurship. Kinsale Community School emerged as winners
with their Card for Life concept using their TRIZ skills to tackle the
alarming problem of information in Irish hospitals. "The project was
well-structured, superbly presented and gave the judges an early bench
mark for the effort invested in this competition by the students" said
John McSweeney.
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