Laois boy enduring heart surgeries wins Intel Mini Scientist regional competition

A young Laois boy enduring a lifetime of heart surgeries is through to the Intel Mini Scientist national final in Ireland.

Tomás Ramsbottom and his cousin Emma Burke are from 5th Class in Scoil Mhuire Fatima National School in Timahoe.

First winning the Intel award in their school exhibition last October, last week they were crowned regional champions at the Intel Mini Scientist Exhibition.

Their project entitled ‘Perfectly Paced’ received considerable praise from the judges and ultimately proved to be a big winner for the children and their school.

The cousins had worked extremely hard since the school win to bring the project to the next level. The project is all about pacemakers and looks at how they can be charged by using wireless technology and kinetic energy.

The inspiration for the project came about due to the fact that Tomás has a pacemaker since he was a baby.

“Pacemaker batteries need to be changed every 7 to 10 years so if Tomás lives until he is 80, he will have to undergo another 10 major operations. He has already had 4 major operations by the age of 10,” explained Emma.

Tomás is keen to make a change for the better.

“Surely in this day and age, a rechargeable battery would be better than a replacement battery.

“The aim of our project is to design a suitable way of charging pacemaker batteries so that people don’t need to undergo major surgery,” he said.

Tomás and Emma presenting their project to the judges at the regional final of the Intel Mini Scientists exhibition. 

The children carried out extensive research and spoke with wireless technology experts in Silicon Valley to design a suitable alternative.

“Tightly coupled inductive charging and RF energy harvesting are two methods of wireless charging that we could use” according to Emma.

Tomás added that “kinetic energy is also an option for us and we really want to develop this idea”.

Emma and Tomás were among 250 students from 77 schools exhibiting at IT Blanchardstown and the standard of competition was extremely high.

The Timahoe NS Intel Mini-Scientist regional winners with their families at the exhibition.

This year, over 6,000 students across 18 counties took part in the competition.

They will now go on to represent the school at the All Ireland Finals to be held in the new year.

This latest win continues the success that the school has enjoyed in the competition in recent years, attaining a hat trick of national finals in 2016. All roads now lead to the All Ireland Final where Emma and Tomás will once again try to ‘wow’ the judges with their project.

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The Intel Mini Scientist competition, now in its sixteenth year, gives young students the chance to explore science through project based learning and exhibitions.

The first phase of the program involves students participating at exhibitions in their own schools which are visited by Intel employees who judge the first round of exhibitions and select from each school a winning project to go forward to a regional final.