ESB Networks National Safety Challenge winners announced

Irene Finnerty, Aoibhe Lennon, Aoife O’Neill were crowned as this year’s winners of the ESB Networks National Safety Challenge with their concept, Smart Electric Fence. The girls beat off stiff competition to scoop the overall award – Emma Mangan and Emily Doyle from Ashbourne Community School with their Safety Board Game; Alex and Jack Brady from Colaiste Craobh Abhann with their Loading Livestock Aid concept; and Kayla McMahon and Fiona Kelly from Desmond College with their Eye in the Cab concept.

We would encourage everyone to enter the competition with their ideas on how to make the farm a safer place

“We are delighted to have been selected as the winners of the ESB Networks National Safety Challenge. We have learned so much from our experience. It just shows what can be achieved if you put your mind to it,” said Irene.

“We would encourage everyone to enter the competition with their ideas on how to make the farm a safer place,” said Aoife.

“It has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience and we would like to thank our teacher, Ms Martina Roache, for all the work and support that she has shown to us throughout,” said Aoibhe.

The winners

Irene, Aoibhe and Aoife are TY students in Athlone Community College. They have designed Smart Electric Fence, a device that detects when an animal is trapped in the electric wire and cuts the electricity to the wire before it kills the animal.

“Smart Electric Fence is a device that detects and disables an electric fence should an animal become entangled in it. Once the fence has been disabled, an SMS message is then sent to the farmer to notify them that their fence has been disabled.

“We designed a voltage divider using resistors to drop the output voltage from 6,000 volts to 2.5 volts to allow it to be read by an Arduino (mini-computer). We then wrote code for the Arduino to monitor the fence in normal operating mode and engage an electromagnet to cut the power to the fence if the voltage dropped by the predetermined amount, for more than 30 seconds. The device then sends an SMS to the farmer notifying him/her that the fence has been disabled. We coded our device so that it sends an SMS message to the farmer’s phone. We wired the product ourselves with the help of Ms Roache.

“Safety is an important concern and all work has been reviewed by a qualified electrician to ensure it is safe.”

Inspiration

Irene comes from a farming background and has seen that animal entanglement involving electric fences is a serious problem for farmers: “I have seen first-hand that a lot of my Dad’s lambs have been killed in electric netting and many other farms in the locality suffer from this problem. Our project would be a great investment for farmers and could potentially save the farmer a lot financially.

“The device is not limited to farmers – it can be used by any electric fence user such as wildlife sanctuary and will protect a wide variety of animals, not just lambs.”

Future plans

Aoife, Irene and Aoibhe have big plans to take their project to the next level: “We hope to commercialise the product and add GPS technology to the device so that the farmer can locate where the fence has been disabled and where the animal has become entangled.”

The standard of entries to the competition has been truly outstanding

Arthur Byrne, Public Safety Officer, ESB Networks, said: “I would like to congratulate Aoibhe, Aoife and Irene on being crowned as the overall winners of this year’s ESB Networks National Safety Challenge. We believe that their idea will make a valuable contribution to improving farm safety on our farms.

“The standard of entries to the competition has been truly outstanding. Each and every idea that has been submitted offers something uniquely different. The judges have had an incredibly difficult job throughout.

“I would also like to thank each and every student who entered this year’s competition and encourage them to continue to come up with ideas for making the farm a safer place for all.”

The challenge

The ESB Networks National Safety Challenge is proudly supported by Safe Family Farms, a joint initiative between ESB Networks and the Irish Farmers Journal to raise awareness and make farms a safer place for all.

We would like to thank all those who entered the competition and would like to encourage you to enter the competition this year to help make our farms a safer place for all.