National winners from the Young Inventors Competition 2008, sponsored by the Scientific Research Council, prepare to board a flight to Trinidad, from the Norman Manley International Airport, where they will participate in the Regional Young Inventors Competition. The team (from left) includes Kevin Reid, Reynaldo Hyatt, both of Brown's Town High School; and Michael Hodgson and Carlton Barrows of Brown's Town Community College. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

Eight young men from the parish of St Ann are breaking down barriers in the world of science and technology and planning to use their skills to make great strides for Jamaica.

They are Carlton Barrows, Michael Hodgson, Carlton Richards and Dervan Brown of Brown's Town Community College, and Kevin Reid, Reynaldo Hyatt, André Hamilton and André Yee-Shui from Brown's Town High School.

The boys recently walked away with the first prize awards for the National Young Inventors Competition, organised by the Scientific Research Council, at the tertiary and secondary levels, respectively, for their inventions.

The team of Reid, Hyatt, Hamilton and Yee-Shui has created an organic insecticide from the castor plant, while Barrows, Hodgson, Richards and Brown produced ethanol from king grass.

Four of the eight young men departed the island yesterday for Trinidad and Tobago, where they will represent Jamaica at the Regional Young Inventors Competition today. The other four travelled on Monday.

Beaming with pride

The young scientists were beaming with pride and joy yesterday afternoon when The Gleaner caught up with them at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston, hours before they left for Trinidad.

"I feel very elated and we are 100 per cent sure we're going to win first place in Trinidad for Jamaica," Hyatt told The Gleaner.

With the recent challenges caused by a global food and energy crisis, Barrows, 19, and Hodgson, 18, said they thought it was critical to find an alternative source from which to produce ethanol without depleting the country's current food supply.

"People depend on corn as a food source and using it to make ethanol would also make the prices go up. We also still depend on sugar cane for sugar, so we needed to come up with a plant that no one depends on for food," Hodgson said.

Same sucrose level

The boys said their brainstorming and research brought them to king grass, which grows wild in Jamaica and is mainly used as feed for some animals.

"We assumed that it would have the same sucrose content as sugar cane because it is from the same family," Hodgson said.

The boys further explained that there were great advantages to using king grass to produce ethanol, rather than sugar cane, as the plant could be reaped three to four times a year, while sugar cane is harvested once a year.

"It also grows more dense than sugar cane, so at least you would be able to produce more ethanol if used along with sugar cane," Barrows added.

Reid, 17, and Hyatt, 16, have fittingly dubbed their invention the 'molluskicide' as it is an organic insecticide that is effective in mollusc pests such as snails and slugs, which are known to feed on green, leafy vegetables.

Their hope is that farmers across the island and throughout the Caribbean will soon use the product to protect their crops.

The boys, who are members of their school's science club, admitted that the process was quite time consuming, but has nonetheless proven to be rewarding.

"We sometimes didn't leave school until 10:30 at nights when we were working on the project," informed Hyatt.

Want careers in science

Naturally, all four young men want to pursue careers in the field of science, through which they hope to make their families and country proud.

Barrows is dreaming of a career in virology, while Hodgson wants to become involved in genetic engineering.

Both young men from Brown's Town High School want to become surgeons.

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com