2007 Press Releases

27 Apr 2007

'Design for All' Competition: Electrical and Electronic Engineering students win the top prize


'Design for All' is a new competition, under the umbrella of Science for All, where UCC students design and build hands-on, interactive science/engineering exhibits to promote scientific research to the general public. The Grand Final of the competition took place earlier this month as judges assessed how effective the exhibits were in engaging visitors at the Spring Open Day. The judges were highly complimentary about the four final shortlisted projects praising them for the flair and originality they demonstrated in creating exhibits which enthused prospective students whilst highlighting the range and versatility of the students' research work in the College of Science, Engineering and Food Science.

Organised by Dr Paul Callanan, Dr Anne Cronin, Dr Kevin McCarthy and Professor William Reville of the College of Science, Engineering and Food Science, the competition, says Dr Cronin, is designed to engage young people in the high level and inspirational science and engineering research undertaken in UCC by students only a few years older than the Transition and Leaving Certificate students attending the Open Day.

Simon O'Callaghan and John O'Callaghan, two final year students from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering were adjudged the overall winners at the Spring Open Day and were presented their €1,000 prize by Abdul Abdulsalam Abubakar from Synge St CBS in Dublin, this year's 2007 BT Young Scientist Winner. Simon and John have developed a fully autonomous mobile robotic vehicle which can be automatically activated in the event of an emergency to act as a first response unit. The robot is capable of navigating in unknown environments and performing a number of tasks such as scanning each room it enters for trapped civilians and extinguishing any fires encountered.

Second prize was awarded to Catherine O'Mahony, a PhD student in the Department of Biochemistry, UCC for her exhibit intriguingly entitled 'Mutant Worms'. The purpose of the Mutant Worms exhibit is to introduce students to the principles of genetic inheritance. C. elegans are model worm organisms and they possess almost 70% DNA similarity with humans. They are frequently used in biomedical research to examine the effects of genetic disruption of DNA.

Third prize was awarded to Kenneth McDonnell, an MEngSc student from the Department of Electrical Engineering, who developed a project to demonstrate the principles involved in electricity generation through the conversion of mechanical energy to electrical. Visitors to his exhibit were impressed with the elegant simplicity of this demonstration, manually turning cranks which then generated enough energy to power light bulbs.  Kenneth also showed how wind turbines can rotate a DC generator rotor, creating electrical energy.

Jeff Hodnett, an MSc student in Multimedia Technology in the Department of Computer Science was awarded fourth place for his exhibit which allows video messages to be sent from a web camera, using a range of video effects, such as chroma keying. This technique allows users to replace the background with video clips, images or animations and was popular with students throughout the day.

Design for All was sponsored by the President's Strategic Fund Awards and Discover Science and Engineering and the competition has clearly demonstrated that UCC students have the talent and capability to develop and deliver high quality, interactive research led experiences for visitors of all ages who come to UCC events.

431MMcS



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