California, here we come! — CPC students

Students win Intel contestFor six young CPC students, the fact that they're off on a week-long trip to the fabled Silicon Valley in October is only just sinking in, writes Brian Byrne.

But they are, courtesy of computer giant Intel Corporation and their own ingenuity. Their idea for an iPhone case with an inbuilt diabetes testing and emergency treatment kit won them out against 12 other second level teams from schools across Ireland in the Intel Youth Enterprise Ideation competition. The final took place today at Intel's plant in Leixlip.

The team comprised Aaron McLoughlin-Sutherland, Godwin Jalanga, Bevan Murray, Robyn Kenny, Caoimhe O'Fearghaill, and Wayne Donohoe. (Aaron is missing from the picture above, as he had another appointment this evening.) They had previously won out against other TY teams from the school at the end of the first Intel Ideation Workshop in CPC in February, organised by Kilcullen Lions Club.

"We're very proud of them," CPC assistant principal Noel Clare said at an impromptu celebration when the team got back to Kilcullen this afternoon. "They really worked very hard on their idea, even coming back during their Easter holidays to refine it. Their win is very well deserved."

He also paid tribute to the Kilcullen Lions for taking up and promoting the Ideation opportunity, and to Clodagh Kavanagh for managing the CPC end of the competition.

"It's particularly special that they won the first Intel Ideation Competition to be held in Ireland," Clodagh said. "From here on in, it's something that's going to grow and grow." She congratulated the CPC group particularly for demonstrating their teamwork at the finals in Leixlip.



As for the Kilcullen team themselves, they were very complimentary of their competition, saying there were some very strong presentations. "We were up number four, and nobody knew what the others were doing, so when we saw some of the presentations that came after us, we saw there was some good competition out there. But we had spent a lot of time over the last two weeks, putting the finishing touches to ours, especially Godwin with the website."

The Kilcullen group was the only one that didn't have a social networking site in their idea, and they feel that this was an advantage. "We were also the only ones with a prototype made up. We had something physical, and a website, something with a fixed price of €55. A lot of the other ideas, and they were very good ideas, had things like monthly subscriptions. Seemed a bit steep for teenagers, because they don't have that kind of money."

The team's concept includes an app which will give instant blood sugar reading from a blood test strip inserted into a computerised reader that's part of the case. If blood sugar is low, the app will tell the owner to take some sugar gel that's part of the kit, and if it is critical a phone message with GPS location and details will be automatically sent to the owner's doctor and parents.

It's the first year the Intel Youth Enterprise Ideation Camp scheme has been run in Ireland, and it is being done in partnership with the Lions Club of Ireland. Some 1,500 students took part, from schools as far apart as Skibereen, Kinsale, Tullamore and Carrickmacross.