2008 Press Releases
Macroom Students are Top Inventors!
20.05.2008
“Inventors Grow in Schools” is the title of an initiative aimed at stimulating interest in engineering for second-level students.
20.05.2008
“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.
TRIZ (the theory of inventive problem solving) is a unique, systematic approach for developing globally competitive innovations. Each group of students was taught the basic principles of TRIZ which they then applied to invent new product ideas.
In the academic year 2002/2003, the Inventors Grow in Schools programme was piloted with the Transition Year students of two Cork schools with excellent results. The UCC PLUS+ Programme (Providing Links to Under represented School leavers) has been supporting the programme since 2003 and it has now reached over 1,000 Transition Year students in 40 schools throughout the Munster region.
This year the Inventors Grow in Schools programme ran in 16 schools and earlier this month the final nine battled it out for the UCC /AIB TRIZ Cup for Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2008 with Bishop McEgan College, Macroom, County Cork emerging winners with their highly inventive product concept based on water entering the house and exiting the house to provide hot water which is stored in a polymer vacuum hot water tank. The project was really well designed using CAD 3D Modelling, multimedia and the presentation by their CEO Anne-Marie Bradley was excellent and engaging.
This year 2008 marks the 10th year anniversary of the death of Genrich Altshuller, known worldwide as the father of TRIZ. “He would have been very excited by the level of innovation these budding entrepreneurs presented”, said John McSweeney.
Participating schools included: Boherbue Comprehensive School, Mallow; Coláiste an Chraoibhin, Fermoy; Coláiste Treasa, Kanturk; Davis College, Mallow; Mannix College, Charleville; Mayfield Community School, Cork; North Presentation School, Cork; St Aidan’s Community School, Cork; St Patrick’s College, Cork; Colaiste na Toirbhirte, Bandon; Deerpark CBS, Cork; Bishop McEgan College, Macroom; North Monastery Secondary School, Cork; Presentation Secondary School, Cork; St Goban’s College, Bantry; Terence Mac Swiney Community College, Cork
The Judges were: Niall McGuinness, Managing Director of Independent Data Management representing the Science, Research & Innovation Committee of Cork Chamber of Commerce; Noel Maughan, Assistant Manager of AIB College Road – Prize sponsors; Olive Byrne, Programme Manager of UCC PLUS+ Programme – Main project sponsor; Professor Alan Kelly, Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor in Food Technology, UCC; Gerard O’Sullivan and Julie O’Donovan, UCC PhD students who have completed a pilot Generic Training Module in TRIZ in 2008.
741MMcS
TRIZ (the theory of inventive problem solving) is a unique, systematic approach for developing globally competitive innovations. Each group of students was taught the basic principles of TRIZ which they then applied to invent new product ideas.
In the academic year 2002/2003, the Inventors Grow in Schools programme was piloted with the Transition Year students of two Cork schools with excellent results. The UCC PLUS+ Programme (Providing Links to Under represented School leavers) has been supporting the programme since 2003 and it has now reached over 1,000 Transition Year students in 40 schools throughout the Munster region.
This year the Inventors Grow in Schools programme ran in 16 schools and earlier this month the final nine battled it out for the UCC /AIB TRIZ Cup for Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2008 with Bishop McEgan College, Macroom, County Cork emerging winners with their highly inventive product concept based on water entering the house and exiting the house to provide hot water which is stored in a polymer vacuum hot water tank. The project was really well designed using CAD 3D Modelling, multimedia and the presentation by their CEO Anne-Marie Bradley was excellent and engaging.
This year 2008 marks the 10th year anniversary of the death of Genrich Altshuller, known worldwide as the father of TRIZ. “He would have been very excited by the level of innovation these budding entrepreneurs presented”, said John McSweeney.
Participating schools included: Boherbue Comprehensive School, Mallow; Coláiste an Chraoibhin, Fermoy; Coláiste Treasa, Kanturk; Davis College, Mallow; Mannix College, Charleville; Mayfield Community School, Cork; North Presentation School, Cork; St Aidan’s Community School, Cork; St Patrick’s College, Cork; Colaiste na Toirbhirte, Bandon; Deerpark CBS, Cork; Bishop McEgan College, Macroom; North Monastery Secondary School, Cork; Presentation Secondary School, Cork; St Goban’s College, Bantry; Terence Mac Swiney Community College, Cork
The Judges were: Niall McGuinness, Managing Director of Independent Data Management representing the Science, Research & Innovation Committee of Cork Chamber of Commerce; Noel Maughan, Assistant Manager of AIB College Road – Prize sponsors; Olive Byrne, Programme Manager of UCC PLUS+ Programme – Main project sponsor; Professor Alan Kelly, Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor in Food Technology, UCC; Gerard O’Sullivan and Julie O’Donovan, UCC PhD students who have completed a pilot Generic Training Module in TRIZ in 2008.
741MMcS