Two budding Irish craftsmen returned from South Korea last week with medals won in the World Skills Championships, the Olympics of vocational and technical training.
Dermot Canavan (pictured left) took gold in brickwork, while Paul Gill won a bronze medal in his area of apprenticeship, construction steel. They were among 2,500 competitors from 35 countries. The Irish tally of two medals and 10 diplomas of excellence put them eighth in the overall table.
"I still can't believe it," Canavan said. "This has been the experience of a lifetime."
Meanwhile, three students from St. Kilian's Community School, Bray, Co Wicklow, came joint third in the 13th European Young Scientists Competition in Bergen, Norway. They faced a week of stiff opposition from 57 other projects from 26 other European countries. The Irish students, Shane Browne, Michael O'Toole and Peter Taylor, had won the Young Scientists in the RDS last January.
Their project on the mathematical properties of regular polygons was suggested to them by their teacher Patrick Quill. They came up with a formula to calculate the number of polygons necessary to form a circular pattern.
