Science is not a concept living in Silicon Valley, it is everywhere – including the east Cork farm on which he grew up – Intel boss Noel Murphy told schoolchildren at a national science competition.

Murphy – who is the blue chip firm’s vice-president for the New Technology Group division – was speaking at the All-Ireland Intel Mini Scientist Final at Dublin City University.

Now in its 11th year, the competition gives primary school pupils from fourth, fifth and sixth class, the chance to explore science through project-based learning and exhibitions.

Murphy said: “What we at Intel love about this competition is you start with your own class, your own teacher, your friends.

That’s real science; working with your friends, looking at the world around you and trying to understand a little more about how the world works.

The All-Ireland runner-up award went to Timahoe National School where farming is regarded as having taught the pupils a lot about science. This year marks the fourth success in a row for the school.

Sixth class pupils David Duggan and Jack Hyland returned to the Laois school on Monday morning in jubilant mood.

Wind farm project

The project attracted a lot of attention throughout the day from the 16 judges, but also from the general public. It tackled the divisive issue of wind farms – focusing specifically on the 18-turbine wind farm proposed for Cullenagh mountain, which is close to the school.

The boys surveyed the public to establish their specific objections to the proposed wind farm.

Using that information as the basis for their design criteria, they set about devising a turbine that would be more acceptable. A whopping 75% of respondents said they would consider their alternative option.

Many stage designs later, they created a functioning model. According to the boys, the turbine they had designed could power all of Timahoe for a year.

They then shared their findings with land owners Coillte, when community engagement manager Andy Fox visited to the school. He has invited the boys to meet with Mark Foley, managing director at Coillte.

Also attracting lots of interest was the creation of a farm safety device by three pupils of Tynock National School on the Carlow-Wicklow border.

Andy Corrigan, Ross Harmon and Daniel Byrne are all from farming backgrounds and love helping out, according to Daniel’s dad, Lorcan, a dairy and pig farmer.

‘Danger watch’

Farm safety has always been very much on the boys’ minds; they are particularly conscious of the need to stay safe around farm machinery.

“From 2007 to 2016, there have been seven children killed on farms by tractors. Nine more were killed by machinery, trailers and equipment, which came to a total of 16 children killed on farms in nine years by machinery,” the group explained.

Our project tries to stop accidents happening. We wanted to come up with an idea to make the farm yard a little less dangerous, and so we invented the danger sensor watch.

The idea is that a watch that would emit a signal, using Bluetooth technology, warning the driver of a tractor or loader of the presence of children.

The pupils created a video so that people could see the alarm going off in the tractor cab as the tractor came within range of the children wearing the watch.

They said they would also include a red warning light to flash inside the cab in case the alarm could not be heard due to the loud noise created by machinery.

They plan to work further on their project, saying they had got very encouraging feedback.