Would you pass a theory test despite being a driver with experience? Do you know how valuable antioxidants are in keeping you looking young? And are female scientists given fair representation in our science books?

These are just some of the ideas that have inspired Coláiste Muire Máthair Galway students preparing for this week’s Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition at the RDS in Dublin.

In all, there are 23 projects from eleven Galway schools at the finals of the Young Scientist.

Coláiste Muire Máthair leads the way with a whopping six projects, while both Presentation College Headford and Coláiste Naomh Eoin on Inis Meáin have four projects each going forward.

Other Galway schools competing are Clarin College Athenry, Dunmore Community School, Portumna Community School and Coláiste Ghobnait on Inis Oírr.

Coláiste Muire Máthair – the amalgamation of the former St Mary’s College with the Presentation and Mercy Convents – is particularly proud of its success in getting half a dozen projects into the finals…with some very pertinent topics for our time.

Senior students Oisin Redmond and Aidan McNeill, for example, have developed and researched their very topical project, ‘Experience V Theory; should the theory test be mandatory’, which focuses on driver habits, and invited participants to sit a random theory test.

Entered in the Senior Behavioural and Social Science category, their results have proven very interesting, and they are hoping that their data can be used by the RSA to help improve driver safety going forward.

Two more senior students, fifth years Evan Wei and Nikodem Kania, have investigated the role and resilience of Vitamin C with their Chemistry based project ‘Supplements v Superfruits: Which source of vitamin C survives best over time’.

Using titration techniques, they investigated a large range of samples at different times over the year to analyse Vitamin C content. They hope their project, entered in the Senior Health and Wellbeing category, can help with developing use by dates on food supplements.

Another food-based Chemistry project is being presented by Leaving Certificate students Julia Matysik and Anastasija Tatarnikova.

Their work, entered in the Senior Mathematical and Physical Science category, centres around the role of antioxidants in herbs and fruits in counteracting the harmful aging effects of common oxidants such as hydrogen peroxide in a project entitled ‘A Clock Ticking on Health: Measuring Antioxidant Levels in Food Sources Using the Iodine Clock Experiment’.

Their work has already won prizes at the Galway SciFest and National TeenTurn SciFest for Girls so they will be hoping to go one step further in Dublin.

Third year students Lena Lewandowska and Auji Astrizal developed their project ‘Life without a buzz: The impact of Yondr pouches on daily life’ following their perceptions and experiences of living without their phones during the school day.

Having decided that getting all their notifications in ‘one big dump’ once their phones were released from their pouches after school was having a bad effect on them, they developed a ‘Contentedness’ questionnaire which compared the results of students in CMMG, who use Yondr pouches, to students in other schools around Galway who have access to their phones throughout the day.

They are entered in the Intermediate Behavioural and Social Science section and are hoping they will be content with their results.

The final two projects qualified are both in the Junior section.

Second year student Mohammed Ashir Anwar will be exhibiting his project ‘NeuroSync: AI Powered Support for Cognitive and Neurological Care’ in the Health and Wellbeing category.

Ashir’s project has weighed heavily on his AI skills to develop a means of treating and recognising Dementia traits in patients. His work has already won the Boston Scientific Medical devices award at Galway SciFest and then followed it up with victory at the National SciFest competition, taking the Irish Science Teachers Association Award for best project. He will be hoping that his work will similarly impress the YSTE judges.

The final project features two second year girls who are no strangers to the winners’ podium having received an award for their project at YSTE 2025.

Crystal Quinn and Liya Walsh have extended the work on this project from last year by focusing on the representation of females in science books in the new updated Senior Cycle courses, ‘Breaking the Bias: Have science books evolved enough to represent female scientists fairly?’

They have been busy researching through each of the new books for Physics, Chemistry and Biology, as well as interviewing the authors of some of the books in order to get information for their work.

This year’s Stripe YSTE is running at Dublin’s RDS until Saturday, featuring over 500 projects from schools all across the island of Ireland.

Pictured: Coláiste Muire Máthair Galway students have qualified six projects for display at the Stripe Young Scientist Exhibition at the RDS in Dublin this week. Pictured are (from left) Auji Asrizal, Lena Lewandowska, Aidan McNeill, Oisin Redmond, Muhammad Ashir Anwar, Lilian Ferguson, Nikodem Kania, Lucy O’Connor, Evan Wei, Liya Walsh, Julia Matysik and Anastasija Tatarnikova. Photo: Joe O’Shaughnessy.