Tipperary teen's accessibility project to head to national STEM competition

A Tipperary teen's project on how to make towns more wheelchair accessible has scooped the top prize at Thurles Scifest.

Luke Blackwell from Thurles CBS won the regional heat of the contest with his project titled A Statistical Analysis of Wheelchair Accessibility in Ireland and an Investigation into the Impact on Wheelchair Users.

Mr Blackwell said he was inspired to undertake the project since many wheelchair users report issues with accessibility.

"Accessibility is a major problem for wheelchair users in Ireland who encounter many obstacles trying to access services everywhere.

"Many problems are related to town planning, including lack of ramps/wheelchair parking, narrow paths, steps and uneven surfaces. Many towns have old buildings that historically weren’t accessible and remain the same today," he said.

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"My objective was to find the most accessible town - and the reasons for this. I produced a detailed assessment of the accessibility issues of 13 towns to influence future town planning and to raise public awareness.

In addition to this, I am now working on establishing relationships between the data and creating mathematical descriptions," Mr Blackwell said.

Martin McCormack, organiser of TUS Thurles Scifest, paid tribute to Luke and his teacher, Danielle Slattery, for her guidance, and said: “The standard of the projects was excellent and it was wonderful to see the work of young students and their science teachers being shown to such good effect.”

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Luke Blackwell's project will now to go on to compete at the national final in November.

SciFest is funded primarily by the Department of Education, Research Ireland, Intel Ireland, Boston Scientific, EirGrid and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.