Have you ever wondered if spiders prefer pop music or classical music? What about whether eating mars bars make your pony run faster? Well these questions and more have been asked and answered by some of the country's brightest students at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition which runs at the RDS until Saturday.
2,000 projects were submitted to the competition organisers from schools all over Ireland but only 550 made the grade. They covered all walks of life - physics, chemistry, agriculture, sport and more.
On Newstalk Breakfast, we compiled our very own top five.
First up are the students from St Gerald's College in Mayo. They developed a gum shield communication device. There is a little vibrating motor in the gum shield that will allow a coach to talk players on the pitch. The students got the idea watching the All Ireland - they wondered if Cillian O'Connor might have gone for a goal instead of a point if the manager could talk to him. They also had a prototype for testing on the public...
Next is the Dominican College in Galway. They looked at one of the great unanswered questions of our time - does playing music to spiders effect the shape of the web that they weave...
Kate Madden from Loreto College in Dublin was getting a lot of attention. I had to wait for the President to finish speaking with her in fact. She undertook to find out if eating a mars bar would make a galloping pony run faster. She told me about the experiment...
Stephen, Conor and Stephen from Bush Post Primary School in Louth developed a product that they hope will help farmers to treat hoof infections on cows. If they end up taking it to the market, they already have a catchy name...
Finally we come to Leah and Ellie from Colaiste Choilm in Cork. They asked how power posing can help you pass your exams...
