School No. 1: Athlone Community College

Students: Irene Finnerty, Aoibhe Lennon and Aoife O’Neill.

Year: Transition year.

Teacher: Martina Roache.

Idea: Smart Electric Fence.

Irene Finnerty, Aoibhe Lennon, Aoife O’Neill are transition year 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,” they said.

“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 the 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 our teacher, Martina Roache,” the girls explained.

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

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,” she said.

The device is not limited to farmers. It can be used by any electric fence user, such as a wildlife sanctuary, and will protect a wide variety of animals. It is not limited to lambs, according to Irene.

What it would mean to win

“To win the ESB Networks National Safety Challenge would mean a huge amount to us. Our hope is that our project would improve animal welfare on farms all over the country and reduce farmer stress and financial loss. We hope that we can inspire other ladies to get involved in farming. We learned a huge amount as part of completing our project. It would be the icing on the cake to win. It would mean that all our hard work and dedication to the project would have paid off,” they said.

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,” they said.

Emily Mangan and Emma Doyle.

School No. 2: Ashbourne Community School

Students: Emily Mangan and Emma Doyle.

Year: Transition year.

Teacher: Joe Gibney.

Idea: Safety board game.

Emily Mangan and Emma Doyle are transition year students in Ashbourne Community School. They have designed a board game that is aimed at educating children about the dangers present on farms.

“It’s a board game that kids can play and adults too, if they want to. There are general knowledge questions and safety questions and the objective is to get around the board as quickly as possible,” they said.

“You roll the dice and whoever gets the highest rolls first. If you land on a blue square, you have to answer a general-knowledge question or on a red square you answer a safety question. If you get the answer correct, you stay in the new position. If you answer incorrectly, you have to move back to your original position before rolling the dice.

“There are also squares with a question mark that have chance questions. If you happen to land on one of these squares, you will end up either moving forward two squares or have to go to hospital. If you end up in hospital you have to roll a three or five on the dice. Otherwise, you will remain there for two full turns,” the girls explained.

“The person who moves around the board first wins, but you can go round a greater number of times to increase the difficulty,” they said.

“The board game is aimed at children between five and 11 years but anyone can play to learn more about safety. The aim is to raise awareness of farm safety and to educate people about the dangers on a farms.”

Inspiration

“We both felt that there weren’t many safety ideas out there for children to keep them safe on the farm so we decided to pursue our idea and do something for younger people. Children, by their very nature, are impressionable. We feel that if we can teach them about the dangers on farms from a young age, then it will stay with them into their adult years,” they explained. “We are both very passionate about farm safety as we have personal experiences of people being injured on the farm. We want to teach children to be safe on the farm,” they added.

What it would mean to win

Both girls were clear answering this question: “It would mean so much for us to win the ESB Networks National Safety Challenge because we are both so passionate about safety and young people and it’s just so important to stay safe on farms because they are so dangerous.”

Future plans

Both Emily and Emma believe that there is great scope to roll out their concept. “If a class was going on a school trip to a farm, if the teacher showed them a presentation on farm safety they could then let them play the board game to reinforce their learning. There is also the potential to develop the game into a user-friendly app so that people can play in school or at home.”

DISCLAIMER: The products and designs listed were judged and awarded prizes for the purpose of the ESB Networks National Safety Challenge only. ESB Networks does not own or endorse these products or designs.