Thousands of students are taking part in the annual BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition which got under way at the RDS in Dublin today.
Just over a third of projects submitted will be on display and judged over the coming days.
3,514 students from 31 counties are taking part in this year's Young Scientist competition. Between them they submitted a total of 1,416 projects, which organisers say is an increase of 138 (11%) on last year's entries.
The majority were group entries but 253 were the work of individual students.
Organisers say twice more girls than boys are taking part. Only 33% of all projects were completed by boys.
500 of the total projects submitted have made it to the Young Scientist finals, which will be officially opened by the Minister for Enterprise Trade & Employment, Micheál Martin, this afternoon.
Tomorrow and Friday students will have their projects on display while they await news of the overall winner, which will be announced on Friday evening.
Cick here to visit our BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition website.
