West Cork students take first and second place at Young Engineers Award 2025
A group of enterprising young West Cork students have won a prestigious engineering award for their potentially lifesaving water safety device.
The six young scientists, all of whom are in third class at Barryroe National School, won the Engineers Ireland STEPS Young Engineers Award for 2025 for their invention — an innovative Water Safety Wristband.
The group, who named themselves 'The Burger Bites', designed a special wristband containing two chambers — one is a compressed air cannister, the other an inflatable balloon.
When a small lever between the two compartments is pulled, the balloon chamber rapidly inflates into the shape of a cushion or lifebuoy, helping the wearer to stay afloat if they get into difficulty. The wristband also features some small lights to aid visibility.
The team — comprised of Rian O'Leary, Meg Adams, Saidhbh Deasy, Conor Griffin, Aoife Whelton and Zac Guerin — chose to design a water safety device following a recent visit from and talk by personnel from the Courtmacsherry Lifeboat Station, which is only a short distance from Barryroe NS.
The group designed several different prototypes before they settled on the final working design.
Students from another West Cork school, St Mary's National School in Rosscarbery, came second in the competition.
Their project concept, titled 'Reel' power an abbreviation of 'Renewable energy eco-friendly lighting', featured streetlights along Rosscarbery's landmark causeway fitted with timers, and sensors at either end of the road.
When a car drives over the first sensor, the street lights come on, before turning off once again when the car drives over the other sensor on the opposite end of the causeway.
The design also features a bank of solar panels along the roadside to power the lights, and tidal turbines below the causeway for extra electricity.
The 'Light Savers' team — comprised of Peig Corcoran, Clara Hogan, Caoimhe O'Driscoll, Ellie Dullea, and Éabha Duggan — said their design would help reduce carbon emissions, light pollution, and wasted electricity, without reducing road safety.
This year's competition was judged by engineers from consulting firm ARUP, eFlow, Engineers Ireland, ESB, Intel, and Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
Damien Owens, director general of Engineers Ireland, commended the nearly 4,000 primary school students who submitted 550 projects for consideration.
Mr Owens said engineering was about the application of science to real-world problems and it was "marvellous to see the students at Barryroe National School excel in this approach to problem-solving".
'The future of Irish engineering is indeed in good hands," he said.
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