2 days Ago By Natalie Croxon
A group of Unanderra primary school students have come up with a potentially life-saving device designed to combat a deadly problem that has claimed 10 lives within five years. Subscribe now for unlimited access . Login or signup to continue reading St Pius X Catholic Primary School year 6 students Rome Golfo, Isaac Iera, Pj Pedron and Isaac Llamas have created a gadget that alerts drivers when a child or pet is left unattended in a vehicle.
The device - called the ThermoTrack - sits on the dashboard and monitors the temperature and movement. When the temperature inside the car rises above 40 degrees and there's movement inside, the ThermoTrack will beep and send an alert to the driver's phone. The device was among dozens of inventions students from Illawarra primary and secondary schools exhibited at Wednesday's Innovate for Impact event, a partnership between the Department of Education and Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong (CEDOW).
The event was born because each agency had its own STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) program and wanted to connect students with industry. About 140 students representing 55 teams from 17 schools attended, with judges and representatives from such businesses and organisations as BlueScope, the University of Wollongong, and i3net. "You create that authentic audience and they're more motivated to go that extra step," Ben Woods, CEDOW professional officer said.
Illawarra Academy of STEM Excellence project officer Russ Taunton said it also promoted careers pathways in STEM while giving employers a look at the emerging talent out there. The boys from St Pius X hit upon their idea while looking into problems that needed solutions. They discovered that NSW paramedics had received more than 1500 calls about people locked in cars within 12 months.
"We decided to do this because we had a lot of concerns for infants and pets dying in hot cars," Rome said. Their project involved not only creating the device, but sourcing its parts, researching the issue - including contacting NSW Ambulance - and creating a video to explain their invention. Also at Innovate for Impact were Lake Illawarra High School year 10 students Myalee Prior and Elijah Blundell, whose projects focused on problems facing farmers.
Myalee made prototypes of two robots, one a ladybird which was designed to fly to crops and determine any diseases or pests on plants before feeding that information back to the farmer, including GPS coordinates of the affected plant. The other robot, shaped like a worm, was created to assess the molecular weight of the soil to determine what nutrients it needed, before delivering those in liquid form. Myalee said her ideas were inspired by two of the leading problems facing Australian farmers: nutrient depletion and plant disease.
Elijah's invention is a soil sensor that farmers would plant to measure moisture levels, nutrients and temperature. The sensor would upload data to a cloud-based system the farmer could access on an app, including suggestions of what was needed. Having grown up in Wagga Wagga, Elijah said farmers would normally have to go out and take these measurements themselves.
"This just tries to make it a bit more convenient for the farmer," he said. Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate.
Our Watch award winner. Reporter at the Illawarra Mercury, mostly covering social affairs. Previously of the Bendigo Advertiser, Northern Daily Leader and Quirindi Advocate.
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