A complex maths project prepared by a third-year student from Synge Street CBS, Dublin has won the top prize in the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2007.
Abdusalam Abubakar (16) developed a new method to attack the secure electronic communications systems used by banks and internet commerce.
Synge Street was among the top winners last year, taking the group award.
The top group prize went to three Maynooth Post Primary School students, Timothy Seebus, Justin Cullinane and Ben Finnegan, for their project to set up and operate an internet-based radio station.
The runner-up individual award went to Ciara Murphy of Beara Community School, Co Cork for her project on the causes of hearing loss in teenagers.
The runner-up group project was won by Paul MacEoin and Ross Driver of Salesian College, Co Kildare for their successful culturing of lung tissue cells, the first time this has been achieved on an underlying collagen scaffold.
The top four prizes and hundreds of others were presented last night during an awards ceremony presided over by Minister for Education Mary Hanafin. She congratulated the students, saying they were all winners given they had been shortlisted to display their projects at the exhibition. "You are officially the brightest young scientists on this island," she added.
Abdusalam delivered an exceptional project to claim top prize in the competition, now in its 43rd year. He has devised a new way to decode the secure communications used by banks, the military and on the internet.
Known as RSA and developed in the 1970s, the coding system is the most popular and secure yet developed. It is based on the use of very large prime numbers multiplied together and decrypting the code depends on knowing the original prime numbers or factors.
Abdusalam, originally from Somalia and living in Ireland for the past two years, extended work on prime number factors done by other mathematicians.
He devised his own method for determining encryption factors and believes his approach, when run on a large computer using faster computer languages, may be able to break some encrypted communications.
Commenting on his success, the judges said: "For a student still in second level, such command and insight into cutting edge mathematical research is remarkable."
The Young Scientist of the Year yesterday received a BT trophy, a cheque for €5,000 and a chance to represent Ireland at the EU's young scientist contest, taking place this September in Valencia, Spain.
Maynooth students Timothy (16), Justin (16) and Ben (17) have spent more than a year researching and setting up an internet-based radio station, called Teenradio. It currently broadcasts from 8am-10pm each day from the web address www.T-radio.eu The project began after Tim started looking at software used to edit and package music and voice. He and his collaborators examined the possibility of setting up their own radio station, getting their signal out over the internet rather than by radio frequency broadcasting.
The three delved into the legal and licensing aspects and now pay royalty fees to IMRO and PPI for their broadcasting activities.
Their audience peaked during the Young Scientist competition, at one stage reaching 1,500 listeners. They promise "no adult control and no classical music" and are now developing software to allow them receive requests and texts from listeners. Timothy, Justin and Ben share a best group prize of €2,400 and a BT trophy.
The risks which threaten the hearing of teenagers provided the theme for the runner-up individual project by Ciara Murphy of Beara Community School. She understands the impact of hearing impairment given she was born with hearing difficulties.
She conducted a survey to help identify the main risk factors threatening hearing in teenagers, with the loud playing of music, particularly through iPods and MP3 players top of the list. She found that 75 per cent of the students surveyed listened regularly to loud music, and 31 per cent of these had no other risk factors affecting their hearing, such as use of loud machinery and frequent ear infections.
The runner-up group prize went to a project involving the culturing of cells from the lung airways, with a view to developing replacement bronchial tubes. Paul MacEoin (18) and Ross Driver (17), sixth-year students from Salesian College, Co Kildare have worked on their research for the past two years.