Richard O’Shea, 18 year old sixth year student from Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál, 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”.
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 the judges with both his science knowledge and the engineering skill he showed in his construction work.
Friday, 15th January 2010 : 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.”
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