BT Ireland announced in November that it has broken all previous records for entries to the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition. The 50th competition, taking place in January 2014, is set to be the biggest ever with 2,000 ideas submitted by 4,418 students from across 32 counties. 50 per cent of secondary schools in the Republic of Ireland have entered a project for the milestone year.
Entering a project is no guarantee of getting accepted. On average, only one in every four projects is deemed worthy i.e. of acceptable scientific significance. As in previous years, 550 projects have been accepted across the four categories.
2014 will be a special year in the history of the BT Young Scientist competition, as it is the 50th year of this the biggest competition of its type in Europe. Limerick schools have a proud tradition of participation in this science competition, none more so that the students of Desmond College, Newcastle West, so it comes as no surprise that yet again this co-educational school with ten projects accepted will have the largest representation of all Limerick schools.
The 21 students involved from Desmond College were obviously elated when the principal Ms Gavin-Barry announced that they had been selected for the 2014 competition, they continue to work on their projects, diaries and displays in the hope of emulating the successes of past students from their school. In fact over the 50 years of the competition, Desmond College, formerly known as Newcastle West Vocational School, have had 107 projects accepted, starting in 1966 when it had two projects entered.