Redmond O’Hanlon, 17, was crowned Northern Ireland’s young engineer of the year at the Big Bang science fair at Ulster University Jordanstown, after designing the handy Quad Trough on his family’s beef farm in Whitecross, Co Armagh. “The idea came from moving troughs from field to field, sometimes with no one to help,” he said.
Redmond O’Hanlon, 17, was crowned Northern Ireland’s young engineer of the year at the Big Bang science fair at Ulster University Jordanstown, after designing the handy Quad Trough on his family’s beef farm in Whitecross, Co Armagh.
“The idea came from moving troughs from field to field, sometimes with no one to help,” he said.
“I wanted to design something to make it a one-man job.”
Redmond first mounted a trough on wheels, but it was still too long and awkward to manoeuvre.
Then, he came up with the design of a four-place trough that folds over in half, with two wheels at one end and a drawbar at the other.
He named the device Quad Trough because of the number of animals it can feed and the ability to move it with a quad bike.
The teenager will now represent Northern Ireland at the UK-wide Big Bang competition next year.
For the moment, he has just finished his exams and is working on the farm full-time all summer, so he admits he hasn’t had much time to think about making his idea commercial.
“But if someone approaches me to produce it, I’ll look into it!” he said.
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