Projects:Two students from Co Dublin have come up with a clever device that could also save lives.
Their lightweight emergency escape hood could give airline passengers and others at risk of fire the extra few minutes they need to reach safety.
Niamh McGreer and Rebecca Cull, both 14 and second-year students at Sutton Park School, Dublin, spent a year researching and developing their escape hood for the Young Scientist Exhibition.
"It is a hood that protects against harmful gases in case of fire," explains Niamh. "It would give you a few minutes extra time, which would be vital if you are trying to escape."
Their research has a real edge to it, including studies of actual cause of deaths in plane crashes. "We did some case studies and found out what people died from," Niamh says. Smoke inhalation is a common cause as well as breathing in the toxic gases given off by fires.
Their solution is a cloth hood like a ski mask made of fireproof material and with a fire-resistant mica visor to protect the eyes, Rebecca says.
The real key however is a special breathing mask built into the fabric which contains substances that can counteract toxic gases and smoke.
Their research indicates that the inclusion in the mask of zeolite, activated carbon and the simple gel beads found in garden centres could trap and neutralise carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and smoke particles for a time, improving a person's chances of escaping.
The hood carries enough minerals and beads to protect the user for about three minutes, Rebecca estimates. "We thought three minutes would be essential to get out of a situation," says Niamh.
The low-cost hood could easily be included in the safety equipment for each passenger on an aircraft, they believe.
Safety was also on the minds of India McGlynn and Isabel Ghose, two 12-year- old first-year students from Loreto College, St Stephen's Green, Dublin. Their study looks at the inclination of drivers to break pedestrian lights and their findings are nothing short of frightening.
The title of their project, "Red means go", says it all. They spent six weeks observing a busy Dublin intersection with an integrated pedestrian crossing and found that nine out of 10 drivers crashed through the crossing either on amber or still worse, on red.
"The intersection has a green man but it is still very dangerous to cross the road," India says. "We found that 91.46 per cent of drivers that could have stopped went through the lights."
They got the idea for the project because recently India and Isabel had been given permission to walk along busy streets to one another's homes. After watching cars regularly breaking the crosswalks, they decided to conduct a detailed study.
They spent six weeks, Monday to Friday between 4pm and 5pm, monitoring traffic at Northumberland Road and Haddington Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin. The speed limit there is 50km/h, which requires a 23 metre safe stopping distance.
They measured back 25 metres to allow some extra leeway and then watched and waited as the lights changed.
Fewer than one in 10 drivers bothered to stop when the lights went amber, India says. Even more alarming, 56 per cent of drivers accelerated and rushed through the lights when they already showed red 25 metres away from the intersection.
A full 86 per cent of cyclists went through the lights. "Garda cars and ambulances without their lights on go through on red as well."
