SciFest National Final 2024

The ISTA extends a warm congratulations to Maura Moore-McCune, a fifth-year student from King’s Hospital School in Palmerstown, Dublin 12, who was named SciFest STEM Champion 2024 for her project “VIPMOD: Vision Impaired Person’s Moving Object Detector”.  She will represent Ireland at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair 2025 in Columbus, Ohio.

SciFest, now in its 19th year, is Ireland’s largest and most inclusive all-island STEM fair program for secondary school students. The National Final, held at Marino Conference Centre in Dublin last week, featured 62 qualifying students from across Ireland. The program has seen consistent growth, with an average annual increase of over 20%, supported by sponsors such as Intel Ireland, Boston Scientific, EirGrid, and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and, of course, the ISTA.

Maura’s VIPMOD app aims to improve safety and independence for the over 2 billion visually impaired people worldwide. Inspired by personal experiences and near-accidents, she developed the app through six prototypes. The final version uses advanced AI models like YOLOv8 to detect and estimate the speed of approaching objects, achieving 95% accuracy in controlled tests. The app is set for trials at Vision Ireland’s WayFinding Centre. Sheila Porter, SciFest Founder and CEO, presented Maura with the award. Maura had previously won both the Best Project Award and the Boston Scientific Award at the TU Dublin, Tallaght regional competition in May. Porter emphasised SciFest’s mission to inspire and empower students in STEM fields. She noted an increase in projects focusing on environment and sustainability this year and expressed gratitude to all participants, including students, teachers, parents, and sponsors, for their contributions to the event’s success.