Granny inspires Maynooth boys' award-winning sonar pathways project!
IT was a family affair at last week's BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition for two multi-award winning young brothers from Maynooth, who attributed their ground breaking project called 'Sonic Pathways' to their hard-of-hearing granny.
Christopher and Daniel Hobbs, who represented Maynooth Post Primary School, attracted widescale praise for their innovative project on sound waves, scooping first prize in their category. They were also selected for a SMART Technologies Special Award and an Analog Devices Student Award which involves a trip to the US for their innovative efforts.
"We were on a visit to our grandmother's house when we came up with our idea," explained Christopher.
"We walked into the sitting room to find the TV blarring as she is hard of hearing.
"So we thought, is there anything we could do to direct the sound towards her and not at anybody else, and that got us thinking."
The boys came up with a way to point sound in one direction so that you only hear noise in the direction to which it is pointed.
"Imagine you are sitting on the couch," said Daniel. "And only people sitting on the couch can hear the TV, allowing someone else to comfortably read the newspaper in the arm chair.
"We can point sound to where we want it to go, like a beam of light only it's sound. Think of it working a bit like a torch in that you can point it at any direction."
Christopher used a sound board to sample the project with various sounds that could be heard only when the board was pointed in your direction.
"This is the world's first attempt to miniturise the technology," he added. "A lot of people have been amazed that it works and how practical it is. It is a whole new way to work with sound. Hopefully granny won't mind that we mentioned her. She lives in Cork so we might just get away with it."
Kildare schools took a total of 21 awards at the 2009 BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.
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Thursday 17 May 2012
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