Students from schools throughout Westmeath are finalising their pitches for the 2025 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, which takes places at the RDS, Dublin from Thursday, 9 January until Saturday, 11 January.
Held in Ireland since 1965, the event attracts tens of thousands of visitors every years, making it one of the largest indoor events in Europe.
Coláiste Mhuire, Mullingar has the largest number of teams locally in the competition with ten, followed by Moate Community College with seven teams.
Ahead of the competition, Coláiste Mhuire Teacher, Eva Acton spoke of her pride in her students, in what is a record year in participation in the event for her school.
“We are absolutely delighted to have ten groups and 24 students, the most students we have ever had.
“The competition is a massive part of Irish society. Academically, it is one of the biggest competitions on the calendar in Ireland and because we have such a strong STEM team in the school, it is something we aim to work towards every year.
“We started off with one project at the school a couple of years ago, then two and now we have up to ten projects.”
Eva continued: “We want to be academically strong so that is where the push for the BT Young Scientist comes from. We are always encouraging students to be the best within whatever area they want to excel in. This allows for creativity from the students because they come up with the projects themselves and they work on them independently.
“Over 2,000 projects entered every year and only 550 projects passed the judging and got through to the exhibition, so showcasing the exhibition alone is like winning, and then going on further to any success is the cherry on top.
“The skills that the students are learning through this exhibition is absolutely fantastic and you can not get it anywhere else.”
