Limerick teenagers tackle power outages and organ donation awareness

Chiarán COLLEGE, Croom will have a notable presence at this year’s Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, (YTSE) with six projects tackling diverse topics from predicting power outages to public awareness of health legislation.

Fifth-year students Sarah Hurley and Miles Bueno are behind Power Predict, an app that aims to forecast power outages up to ten days in advance. The project was developed following Storm Éowyn.

“We saw how much it affected people nationally because of the suddenness… We decided that the best way to solve this problem is to have an easy, accessible app that anybody can use,” said Sarah.

Users sign up to Power Predict by entering their Eircode. The app provides alerts and notifications if a future power outage is predicted or if an area is deemed to be at high risk over the coming days.

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Meanwhile, second-year student John Shanahan (14) is using his YTSE project to shine a light on what he believes is a worrying lack of public understanding around Ireland’s new organ donation legislation.

“My project is into people’s understanding of the new organ donation law around presumed consent,” he explained. “I’m just going to see if people even know about the new law at all because it was only discussed on radio and Prime Time.”

John focused his research on the Human Tissue Act, which introduced a system of presumed consent for organ donation. Under the law, adults are considered willing organ donors unless they have opted out.

The topic is quite personal for John. “I have a rare disease and will need an organ donation in the future so it’s of crucial importance to kind of make sure people know about this.”