Year 5 student Bella Winfield said she’s always had an interest in designing.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“I’ve had the interest for a few years. I really like designing all kinds of things like clothes,” she said.
Her designing skills have made her a finalist in a competition for young Australian inventors, which could see her win a trip to NASA to help make her idea a reality.
The student at St Anthony’s Primary School in Wanniassa was one of four finalists in her age group out of 1000 entries from around the country in the littleBIGidea competition.
Her design centered on using sugarcane pulp to make plastic toys.
She said she came up with the idea after seeing water bottles made out of the biodegradable material.
“After I saw the sugar cane water bottles, I wondered why everything wasn't made out of that,” Bella said.
“Sugar cane plastic absorbs carbon dioxide better and it would be better for the environment, because it’s biodegradable and recyclable but normal plastic isn't.”
As part of the design, she said the sugar cane plastic could make both dolls and action figures.
Bella said the toys would also provide extra jobs to large sugar-cane growing communities around the world.
“The toys would make a lot of people happy around the world,” she said.
“They would also come with comic books for the action figures and books for the dolls.”
For her entry, Bella had to send in a one-minute video outlining her proposal.
After being selected as a finalist, she was invited to attend a workshop in Sydney, where the finalists were to expand upon their ideas with the helps of experts such as inventor Dr Jordan Nguyen and Engineers Without Borders.
“The idea then became a lot clearer,” Bella said.
A winner in the competition is expected to be announced next week.
The year 5 student said she never expected to be named as a finalist in the inventor competition.
“I was pretty overwhelmed and surprised when I found out I was a finalist, because my design wasn’t really a scientific idea, it was more of a concept,” she said. “If I won, I would work really hard to do lots of other designs.”
Andrew Brown
I've been part of the Canberra Times since 2016, after reporting at local papers in Sydney's north-west. Since starting at the paper I've had stints on the Sunday Times, on the early morning breaking news round, and now as a general reporter, covering the ins and outs of anything and everything happening in Canberra, with a focus on health.
I've been part of the Canberra Times since 2016, after reporting at local papers in Sydney's north-west. Since starting at the paper I've had stints on the Sunday Times, on the early morning breaking news round, and now as a general reporter, covering the ins and outs of anything and everything happening in Canberra, with a focus on health.
