? Lighting up the night with Carol services
The not so mad Normandale inventor
For the past three years, Hutt Valley High School student Liam Ellis has been dubbed the top teen inventor in the national Bright Sparks Hi-Tech Competition. ?I just love pulling things apart to see how they work,? says Mr Ellis. This year?s offering is a garment that prevents bad posture by monitoring vertebrae and alerting the wearer when they start to slouch. By setting the 24 sensors to your perfect posture, the device alerts you when you start to slouch. ?My mum is an accountant who works at home, and my dad works in construction, so they alerted me to the problem many people have of bad posture. ?My first projects were designed well and pretty cool, but this year?s design has the potential to help people and is not just cool to look at,? he says. After initial research on the internet, he approached Massey University lecturers to help fine tune his design. The feedback was positive and the garment has ?good potential to become profitable?. Last year he fashioned a robotic arm with a gripping claw, mounted on tank-style tracks, which can be piloted by remote control. It has an on-board wireless camera, plus gas and heat sensors, and was created to assist bedridden hospital patients, or help in search and rescue missions or with gas leak detection. In 2007 he constructed a ?basic design robot? from wood, metal, plastic and an old video recorder. For Mr Ellis Richard Branson is a role model who showed him ?you can do things while you are young and succeed?. In true ?techie? fashion the awards were presented online and winners are not told of their prizes until they arrive. Last year he won $500 cash and through an invitation to the ?Realise a Dream? competition, organised by The Royal Society of New Zealand, he earned a $2000 scholarship. He plans to study a bachelor of engineering at Canterbury University next year, and eventually work in the robotics field.
