This year the Aquinas team worked with Phoenix Natural Gas in the Sentinus Team R&D project.

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The team, made up of Year 13 students Eimear Cosgrave, Peter McEvoy and Aisling Teague were set the task of finding a reliable method of verifying the test data taken when new service pipes are installed. To solve this task Andrew Lyle, a Phoenix Gas engineer, gave his assistance providing valuable knowledge about Phoenix Natural Gas and gas pressure testing methods. The team spent two months researching many different pressure measurement and recording methods including; Bluetooth pressure gauges, data loggers, GPS chips, OCR (optical character recognition) technology, and smartphone applications. After testing and evaluating these methods, the smartphone application was chosen as the solution. A smart phone application (app) was developed which records the geographical location, a time tag, the weld number of the joint, the Phoenix Gas job number and a photographic record of the gas pressure test. This solution would save Phoenix Natural Gas thousands of pounds as it reduces the possibility of gas leaks due to failed installation tests.
The team wrote and submitted a report on their research and solution presenting the project to a panel of engineers at the presentation day in Ballymena in April. The app has been tested and presented to Andrew Lyle and the response has been very positive. The next step for the team will be the presentation of the solution to the company board of engineers and directors with a view to introducing it to installation teams.