Hello Readers,
So this year we headed to the Galway Science fair again, and the kids loved it.
I wrote an article about it last year too and by and large, the main hall had the same familiar companies that were exhibiting the latest in science and technology. We entered our names in a few of the competitions, and got lucky, as Alex won a speaking microscope (thanks to Medtronic )
There was a new hospital ward section which showed the basics of CPR, bloodpressure. It was good to see that this was added as it brings it all much closer to real life. The kids enjoyed doing CPR to a dummy!(see picture)
As we arrived early this year( just past 10 o’clock) it wasn’t that busy yet, we spent some time looking at various projects of participating schools, which was great. There were lot’s of schools who were displaying their projects, so I’ll just cover a few that I that got talking to( or the ones I found interesting!!)
Scoilroisdominicanns – Dominican School showed me their projects, one of them measuring water quality/polution by measuring the heartbeart of mussels ( see picture). A device was strapped to mussel that measured the heartbeat of the mussel and the opening of closing of its shell.
They had another project where instructions were written down to draw a squirrel versus watching a video on how to draw a squirrel. They then showed the results of the pupils that drew a squirrel based on written instructions versus those that watched the video tutorial, and it was clear that those who watched the video tutorial produced a better looking squirrel than those that drew it based on written instructions.
Safreeze: Helping consumers identify whether their frozen food is safe to consume or not. Safreeze is a dual-coloured ice cube that will form a single colour if frozen food is defrosted and refrozen. Therefore it will be clear to the consumer that the food is unsafe to consume.
The last school – Milltown National School – showed me their Digital Heritage Archive Project of Milltown. The pupils got together with the community to document historic pictures and objects, and uploaded them onto Flickr. They won first prize in the Digital project last year.
You can see the results of their project on Flickr.
You can see the results of their project on Flickr.
Another interesting stand was the 091labs.com – 091 Labs is a collaborative community space based in Galway City,
Ireland. It is a shared physical space for any and all creative
projects: art, woodwork, software, photography and electronics and
related activities.
There was also Ignite: which is a global
lightning presentation format where speakers have five minutes and
twenty timed slides to enlighten and inspire the audience about their
chosen topic. Entry is €5 and the enlightenment is free!
Ireland. It is a shared physical space for any and all creative
projects: art, woodwork, software, photography and electronics and
related activities.
There was also Ignite: which is a global
lightning presentation format where speakers have five minutes and
twenty timed slides to enlighten and inspire the audience about their
chosen topic. Entry is €5 and the enlightenment is free!
We left around 2 o’clock when there was a sea of people, and decided to go for some food at the Bodkin Roundabout at the Tesco shopping centre.
For those who haven’t been to Galway City in a while, be aware!! There has been a major transformation of the once “magic”roundabout. Galway has lot’s of roundabouts, and this one was particularly difficult to navigate.
The new roundabout has lights, a lot more lanes, so if you are not sure what lane to choose, check out this image.
I hope that next year we’ll remember to book our tickets via Eventbrite, there are a variety of sessions that are very popular and book out very fast! Follow the Galway Science Facebook page to keep up with developments!
Have a nice remainder of the weekend!
Katleen
