Hey guys, Niamh here, as in BT-Young-Scientist-Does-A-Cat's-Gender-Have-Any-Effect-On-It's-Response-To-Catmint Niamh. I was supposed to make this post sooner (sorry!) but we were kinda up the walls, what with the fact that 15,000 people came to see the exhibition on Friday alone!
So yeah, BT, it was absolutely CRAZY! I'll give you a day by day:
Wednesday
We were at the train station by 6AM, on the train by 6.15, in Dublin by 9AM. When we arrived it was absolutely freezing.
We piled into three taxis and drove to Bewleys, where we checked in (thanks to Ms. O'Sulivan), chucked all unnecessary baggage in our respective rooms and were out the door again. We walked to the RDS and registered. At registration we received:
1. Our stand numbers (1533 - Niamh O'R (me), Grainne and Claire, 2545 - Niamh P and Kirsten and 4528 - Rachel, Lorna and Sinead)
2. One free copy of the BT YSTE exhibition guide per group.
3. Our fancy schmancy badges, which were basically AAA passes at the exhibition.
4. Lunch vouchers
5. A ticket which got us each a BT backpack with some cool things in it (including a BT YSTE notebook, and a sport watch).
6. A very large piece of cardboard on which to mount our display.
We then went to our respective stands and set up our displays. After lunch there was the opening ceremony, which was very cool (The Heathers were there!). Following the opening ceremony we had our first round of judging (which was kinda scary), we all got through it alright. After that we were done for the day, so we got dinner and got ready for that evenings entertainment: A Disco. It was great fun.
Thursday
Everything really began on Thursday. It was our first day facing the general public, and goodness, there was a lot of them to face. We basically got grilled left right and centre from 10AM to 4PM, it was so busy we had to take turns running to the cafe for lunch, which we ate at our stands, while being grilled by people (no rest for the wicked, eh?). We had our final two rounds of judging as well, which went swimmingly. We also took turns going walkabout, so we all got to explore the Innovation and Technology and Eco Halls, which involved a lot of very cool stalls (one stall had a tank full of rainbow trout on display, another had mummified bats, another had a taxidermied stoat, twas weird), very cool displays, a rainbow of brochures and lots and lots of free things (including light up yoyos, a.k.a. glowyos). By the end of the day we all had several bags of free things (a.k.a. swagbags).
That nights entertainment was a table quiz. The highlights were: cheater shaming (which involved the redcoats (BT staff) pointing at the cheaters while we all banged and said 'oooooooooh'), getting the announcer (who was from Dublin) to say 'cork is the REAL capital' the 'Gangham style'-off, getting two redcoats to do gangham style, the Jingle Bells and Raitlin Bog singalongs and comedy answers such as 'Who co-founded microsoft with Bill Gates? -The Pope'.
We also made some new friends from all over the country (shoutout to Finny Finn Finn from Meath, Anna from Galway, Kevin from Kilkenny, and Manu and Diego from Wicklow) and even some from Cork. Our Cork friends, funnily enough, just so happened to be from the Other St. Als (that's St. Aloysius School, shoutout to Kim, Laura, Paulina and Aoife from there)
Friday
By Friday we were nearly dead with fatigue (well, everyone else was, I was fine for some reason) but we got no rest at all, because it was on that day that 15,000 people decided to show up. They had to turn people away at the doors it was so crowded, not just once, but twice! It didn't stop us from having fun with our new friends though, we even got to see the Space show (with Finny Finn Finn), which included a live skype linkup with an actual astronaut. We spent a lot of Friday just wandering around (with someone manning the stand at all times, obviously).
At 4.30PM we started queuing outside the BT Arena for the Prize giving. We actually got decent seats this time, horah! (our seats at the opening ceremony were rather atrocious) There was over a hundred prizes to be handed out, so it took quite a while. Alas, we won nothing, but the group that did win were from Kinsale, Cork (C'MON THE REBELS) and were an all-girl group, the first all-girl group to win the competition in at least three years.
Following that we ran to Bewleys, shoved some food in our faces rather hastily, and got ready to party. The entertainment of that night was Karoke and another disco. Needless to say, BT Karoke is the best Karoke. Highlights included the notorious 'Table 21' from quiz night (see Thursday, Bill Gates Pope answer) doing Bohemian Rhapsody while literally everyone in the room sang along (because science nerds and people who love Queen are clearly pretty much the same thing).
We then partied until we were wrecked and probably bruised from being accidentally elbowed/stepped on/walked into on the dancefloor (someone managed to step on both my shins while I was standing upright? I don't know how that even happened). It was still quite a lot of fun.
Saturday
To be honest, by Saturday were were all kind of bored, it was quieter than Friday and the winners had already been crowned, so we (and quite a lot of the other projects) saw no real need to be actively at our stands anymore, we had pretty much abandoned them entirely by 12.00 (well, our group did, Niamh and Kirsten stayed at theirs chatting to their BT friends) (Sinead's group were kinda back and forth all day, major chit chatting occurred). So basically we spent all of two hours at our stand (yeah, yeah, we're bad people, we know). We (that is, Claire, Grainne and I) spent all of our day hanging around with Kim, Aoife, Anna, Finny Finn Finn Finn, Laura and Paulina, listening to music, learning to yo yo (we are all now competent yo yo-ers), and exploring. We got to hold a snake (we named him Sherlock), and a lizard (the lizard didn't like us very much).
At around 4.30PM we had to go pack up our stand, but before that we had to say our goodbyes. For Claire, Grainne and I, this involved a lot of hugging (around ten hugs each, at least), it was rather sad.
As we were dismantling our display we managed to knock out the sign belonging to the group behind us, which hit a random gentleman in a suit right in the head, if you're reading this, random suited gentleman, we are very sorry.
We got to the hotel, grabbed our bags and in Sinead, Lorna and Rachels case, some food (the rest of us forgot, aren't we smart?) and ran out the door for 5.15PM even though our train wasn't until 7.00PM. We were expecting mega match traffic, but (plot twist) there was none, at all. We got to the station for 5.45PM, seventy-five minutes early for our train. While we waited, we exchanged stories from the week. Like the time one of us (who shall remain anonymous) answered the question 'what section was that project in' with 'the sciences'. Or the time the minister for education said in front of 1200 teenagers at the prize giving 'thanks to the teachers, the ones that turned you on.' All 1200 of us laughed for a solid five minutes (what is maturity?).
We got the train at seven and were back in Cork by ten, we each made our way home, then attempted to sleep off the tired. Now it's Sunday, tomorrow we got back to normality, no more French pastries for breakfast, no more being surrounded by amazing accents, but at least we don't have to be grilled about our projects anymore.
Third years, next year, it'll be ye're turn. I cannot recommend it highly enough. DO BT GUYS, JUST DO IT. START WORKING ON IT NOW. WIN IT FOR US! (no pressure) Seriously though it was one of the best experiences ever.
Photos coming soon.
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So yeah, BT, it was absolutely CRAZY! I'll give you a day by day:
Wednesday
We were at the train station by 6AM, on the train by 6.15, in Dublin by 9AM. When we arrived it was absolutely freezing.
We piled into three taxis and drove to Bewleys, where we checked in (thanks to Ms. O'Sulivan), chucked all unnecessary baggage in our respective rooms and were out the door again. We walked to the RDS and registered. At registration we received:
1. Our stand numbers (1533 - Niamh O'R (me), Grainne and Claire, 2545 - Niamh P and Kirsten and 4528 - Rachel, Lorna and Sinead)
2. One free copy of the BT YSTE exhibition guide per group.
3. Our fancy schmancy badges, which were basically AAA passes at the exhibition.
4. Lunch vouchers
5. A ticket which got us each a BT backpack with some cool things in it (including a BT YSTE notebook, and a sport watch).
6. A very large piece of cardboard on which to mount our display.
We then went to our respective stands and set up our displays. After lunch there was the opening ceremony, which was very cool (The Heathers were there!). Following the opening ceremony we had our first round of judging (which was kinda scary), we all got through it alright. After that we were done for the day, so we got dinner and got ready for that evenings entertainment: A Disco. It was great fun.
Thursday
Everything really began on Thursday. It was our first day facing the general public, and goodness, there was a lot of them to face. We basically got grilled left right and centre from 10AM to 4PM, it was so busy we had to take turns running to the cafe for lunch, which we ate at our stands, while being grilled by people (no rest for the wicked, eh?). We had our final two rounds of judging as well, which went swimmingly. We also took turns going walkabout, so we all got to explore the Innovation and Technology and Eco Halls, which involved a lot of very cool stalls (one stall had a tank full of rainbow trout on display, another had mummified bats, another had a taxidermied stoat, twas weird), very cool displays, a rainbow of brochures and lots and lots of free things (including light up yoyos, a.k.a. glowyos). By the end of the day we all had several bags of free things (a.k.a. swagbags).
We also made some new friends from all over the country (shoutout to Finny Finn Finn from Meath, Anna from Galway, Kevin from Kilkenny, and Manu and Diego from Wicklow) and even some from Cork. Our Cork friends, funnily enough, just so happened to be from the Other St. Als (that's St. Aloysius School, shoutout to Kim, Laura, Paulina and Aoife from there)
Friday
By Friday we were nearly dead with fatigue (well, everyone else was, I was fine for some reason) but we got no rest at all, because it was on that day that 15,000 people decided to show up. They had to turn people away at the doors it was so crowded, not just once, but twice! It didn't stop us from having fun with our new friends though, we even got to see the Space show (with Finny Finn Finn), which included a live skype linkup with an actual astronaut. We spent a lot of Friday just wandering around (with someone manning the stand at all times, obviously).
At 4.30PM we started queuing outside the BT Arena for the Prize giving. We actually got decent seats this time, horah! (our seats at the opening ceremony were rather atrocious) There was over a hundred prizes to be handed out, so it took quite a while. Alas, we won nothing, but the group that did win were from Kinsale, Cork (C'MON THE REBELS) and were an all-girl group, the first all-girl group to win the competition in at least three years.
Following that we ran to Bewleys, shoved some food in our faces rather hastily, and got ready to party. The entertainment of that night was Karoke and another disco. Needless to say, BT Karoke is the best Karoke. Highlights included the notorious 'Table 21' from quiz night (see Thursday, Bill Gates Pope answer) doing Bohemian Rhapsody while literally everyone in the room sang along (because science nerds and people who love Queen are clearly pretty much the same thing).
We then partied until we were wrecked and probably bruised from being accidentally elbowed/stepped on/walked into on the dancefloor (someone managed to step on both my shins while I was standing upright? I don't know how that even happened). It was still quite a lot of fun.
Saturday
To be honest, by Saturday were were all kind of bored, it was quieter than Friday and the winners had already been crowned, so we (and quite a lot of the other projects) saw no real need to be actively at our stands anymore, we had pretty much abandoned them entirely by 12.00 (well, our group did, Niamh and Kirsten stayed at theirs chatting to their BT friends) (Sinead's group were kinda back and forth all day, major chit chatting occurred). So basically we spent all of two hours at our stand (yeah, yeah, we're bad people, we know). We (that is, Claire, Grainne and I) spent all of our day hanging around with Kim, Aoife, Anna, Finny Finn Finn Finn, Laura and Paulina, listening to music, learning to yo yo (we are all now competent yo yo-ers), and exploring. We got to hold a snake (we named him Sherlock), and a lizard (the lizard didn't like us very much).
At around 4.30PM we had to go pack up our stand, but before that we had to say our goodbyes. For Claire, Grainne and I, this involved a lot of hugging (around ten hugs each, at least), it was rather sad.
As we were dismantling our display we managed to knock out the sign belonging to the group behind us, which hit a random gentleman in a suit right in the head, if you're reading this, random suited gentleman, we are very sorry.
We got to the hotel, grabbed our bags and in Sinead, Lorna and Rachels case, some food (the rest of us forgot, aren't we smart?) and ran out the door for 5.15PM even though our train wasn't until 7.00PM. We were expecting mega match traffic, but (plot twist) there was none, at all. We got to the station for 5.45PM, seventy-five minutes early for our train. While we waited, we exchanged stories from the week. Like the time one of us (who shall remain anonymous) answered the question 'what section was that project in' with 'the sciences'. Or the time the minister for education said in front of 1200 teenagers at the prize giving 'thanks to the teachers, the ones that turned you on.' All 1200 of us laughed for a solid five minutes (what is maturity?).
We got the train at seven and were back in Cork by ten, we each made our way home, then attempted to sleep off the tired. Now it's Sunday, tomorrow we got back to normality, no more French pastries for breakfast, no more being surrounded by amazing accents, but at least we don't have to be grilled about our projects anymore.
Third years, next year, it'll be ye're turn. I cannot recommend it highly enough. DO BT GUYS, JUST DO IT. START WORKING ON IT NOW. WIN IT FOR US! (no pressure) Seriously though it was one of the best experiences ever.
Photos coming soon.
Great post girls! Tubridy is becoming a regular feature on the blog!
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