The B!g idea introduces students to creativity as an essential, valued skill with exponential benefits for our wider society and what a collection of winners 2022 has delivered! This year’s entrants produced some incredible projects ranging from spaces for teenagers to hang out in, to apps that support mental health and friendship hubs, to teenage-led cafes. There was definitely something for everyone.
The brilliant overall winning B!G Idea, Trash Scan, is sponsored by Creative Ireland and is from St Leo’s College, Carlow. The team is made up of Isabella, Eva, Jessica and Lily and the B!G idea is to look at the area of fast fashion and other products and offer suggestions for ways to recycle or upcycle them by adding a barcode to the product. When scanned into an app, there will be suggestions of ways to sustainably recycle the product through the use of QR codes along with rewards for doing so. Quite frankly, it’s genius!
Winners Isabella, Eva, Jessica and Lily of St Leo’s College, Carlow
There were five category winners in total. Kilkenny Youthreach were the worthy winners of the Mental Health category, sponsored by Aerogen, with The Lounge. This project presents the key design requirements for a youth centre, in their words, designed by teens for teens. The team embraced the concept of a hero bringing their personal experiences to the idea.
The Healthcare category, sponsored by Netwatch was won by Coláiste Chiaráin, Limerick with their project Dr Disease. The B!G idea here was to cleverly use the existing structure of the Covid tracker to develop a more advanced app that can map the spread of other illnesses and gives the local health authorities the ability to manage and contain outbreaks. The project demonstrates systems thinking while further developing existing technologies to improve healthcare.
The winning project for the Equality category, sponsored by CJ Fallon was Spark Youth from St Joseph’s College, Tipperary. This inspiring idea is a website for LGBTQ teenagers to connect through. In the team’s words, it’s not a website that panders to the community but instead authentically meets their needs. The app also links to other sites through existing websites.
The Housing category, sponsored by RIAI was not left short in quality either with the winning project, Geodesic Homes, coming from Desmond College, Limerick. This B!G idea concentrated on low cost sustainable dome housing. There was clear evidence of a lot of research in this project and some fantastic prototypes were developed. All in all, a very worthy winner.
And last, but most certainly not least, was the Climate Change category, sponsored by MSD which was won by Portable Wind Turbine from Borris Vocational School, Carlow. The B!G idea here was to focus on a flat-packed product which could be used to help generate power. The product was made with the likes of Eritrea, Africa in mind – a hot nation with unstable, limited access to energy and a growing reliance on renewable wind energy.
It is very clear from every single project, which are all available to view through this link, that the uptake of The B!G Idea’s teachings has been phenomenal. Students have explored, e-learned, played, researched, developed, been mentored and hopefully had lots of fun during the 16 weeks of the programme if these projects are anything to go by.
So drop what you’re doing and check out the quality of ideas generated by these future thinkers. All of the projects created by the students of The B!G Idea 2022 are on show here and it’s well worth a visit.
