Local high school students take home top award

A couple of young innovators have been swinging their gate open at the Fieldays this year.

St Paul's Collegiate School Year 13 students Spencer Clayton-Greene, 17, and Bennet Groube, 18, with the help of fellow students Edward Scluter, 17, Thomas Nicholson, 17 and Jarrod Mealings, 18, took out the Young Innovator of the Year Award at Fieldays for their Gudgeon Guard invention. 

The Gudgeon Guard, which Spencer said was a simple mechanism, has been on display in the Fieldays Innovation Centre throughout the extravaganza.

“It slips on to the top of a gudgeon that allows the whole gate to be lifted up 120mm so that you don’t have to re-drill into a strainer and re-hang a gate completely.”

What’s a gudgeon, you ask? It’s the metal piece that holds the gate on the post.

Spencer said growing up as a farm kid was part of the motivation behind this idea.

“I was always having to open gates that were slumped and having to re-hang them with dad was always a hassle. It’s about $100 to replace the gudgeon and the post, so this is cost effective as well.”

Bennet said the reason they were at Fieldays was because of a school competition.

“It was called the Crocodile Pit, a bit like the Dragon’s Den here. We had to come up with our own idea and then we had three minutes to say it in front of seven judges followed by four minutes where they just drilled us with questions – trying to find anything wrong with it. We managed to get in the top three and then we won it, so we got to come here.”

Spencer said it had been a great experience, especially since they won the Young Innovators award on Thursday morning.

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