Our names are Lauren and Posi and recently we took part in a competition of PE related projects. Our project was called ‘The Magic Feather: One Weird Trick to Boost Athletic Performance in TCS.’ We investigated how the placebo effect would impact our students in terms of their times for a 40m sprint. We used a ‘modified’ Fitbit as our placebo. We then told a group of students (subjects) that it was modified to increase their run times, most of them believed it. Our results showed that there was an increase in speed with an average of 0.83km/h. Our main take away from our project was what the power of the mind can do. Just believing in yourself and having a positive mentality can show many improvements.
This was the project that we brought to the expo and our experience on the day was great. We started our morning early as we were the first students to arrive at the DCU Sports Hall. We set up our presentation on our board and it was great to talk to other people about our project. We also looked around at other peoples’ projects and some of them were amazing. Along with the tons of projects in the hall there was also a bunch of games to play there. We gave lots of things a go and it was so much fun.
When the judging began, we made sure to go over our presentation, we were super nervous but excited at the same time. We could see them walking around with their pens and clipboards but we had no idea when they would judge us. We got each other hyped up and danced around a little to get rid of our over-the-top energy. The peer-judges came around first so it was a nice way to ease into it. Our judge finally came and we were ready. When our judge came, she asked us lots of different questions. After she left, we were so relieved to have finishes presenting our project.
Later, it was time to announce the winners. We were sat at the very back with our hearts in our stomachs wondering what was going to happen. It was time, “the winner of the new school award, THE MAGIC FEATHER” . We looked at each other shocked our project was called. As we walked through the crowd of people, we were unable to process this surreal moment. Standing on the stage in front of all these faces was nerve racking. We were congratulated and awarded medals. We held our trophy and took pictures. When we got of stage, we celebrated in happiness with Ms O Gorman. Then after a little while there was another announcement! “The overall winner for the sports psychology award is THE MAGIC FEATHER!!!!” There it was again our project. Another award! This time walking on stage for the second time was easier. We were so happy as we really wanted to win this category and we did.
The ceremony ended shortly after and everyone prepared to go home and claim their prizes. The journey back home was really fun as we just wanted to get home and tell everyone we won.
This was one of the best experiences we’ve had. We hope to do this again next year and are still thinking of the type of project we can enter. We had a great time there. We’d really love to thank Ms O Gorman for helping us out in this project, we couldn’t have done it without her!
By Lauren Coughlan and Ayomiposi Oshundaro
