By Michelle Crean

It was tough competition up against hundreds at the 59th BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition (BTYSTE) - but local students held their own when it came to their project.

The Killarney Community College Young Scientist team, made up of Liam Waldron, Rachel Griffin and Luke O'Sullivan, were awarded a coveted Highly Commended Rosette at this year’s awards held in Dublin last week.

Their project, 'Investigating Generalisations of Pythagoras' Theorem Using Iterated Function Systems and Hutchinson Attractors' was entered in the Chemical, Physical & Mathematical Sciences category.

The same group of students already received national honours this year when they won SciFest and will travel to Dallas in April to represent Ireland.

The team represented themselves admirably while speaking eloquently and knowledgeably on their project. They responded well to three days of questioning by fellow students, the general public and four rigorous rounds of judging!

They answered questions on a subject that most people would find difficult, but they explained it clearly and spoke about its everyday applications.

Their science teacher Ms Spillane, who accompanied them over the four days in Dublin said it was "a very intense four days for the students".

"They worked so hard to get here but represented themselves and the school so well. We are very proud of all their achievements this year."

The overall BT Young Scientist winners were Shane O’Connor and Liam Carew from Abbey School, Tipperary with their project 'Assessing the impact of second-level education on key aspects of adolescents’ life and development'.