Young Inventors

Some Aussie kids will soon be heading to NASA in the US after being named the winners of a national competition for young inventors. Here's a look at two of this year's winners and their amazing ideas.

Over the years, kids have come up with some pretty cool inventions - like the trampoline, earmuffs, ice blocks, even the braille system and now some new inventions can be added to that list.

BRIDGETTE: it makes me feel amazing! I never thought I could win the prize.

Bridgette was one of the winners of the Little Big Idea competition which aims to inspire young inventors to get creating. Her invention is a band aid dispenser, kind of like a sticky tape dispenser but for band-aids.

BRIDGETTE: So the casing can open and the push button closes it and opens it. It's got a blade right here to rip band-aid straight off.

Bridgette has leukaemia, so for the past year she's needed a lot of blood tests. And, after watching her mum struggle to open band aids each time she came up with the band aid dispenser as a way to make things a little easier for her.

Kern was another one of this year's winners.

KERN: I still can't believe it, yeah it's amazing.

And his Big Idea was to find a more water-wise way of watering his garden.

KERN: I was riding my bike along our footpath and I was wet from a sprinkler and I wanted to find a solution to stop water wastage.

So he came up with the smart sprinkler.

KERN: So how it works is a person walks around the boundary of your grass or garden with an infra-red remote control and the smart sprinkler detects the remote control and maps the area in its memory and then as it sprays water it changes its tilt arm to spray the boundary of the garden instead of wasting water onto footpaths.

As part of their prize, these inventive kids will be jetting off to the US where they'll visit NASA to see some other cool inventions and inventors.

KERN: I'm really excited about going to NASA to see how the astronomers research space and the solar system.

And they're hoping it'll inspire them to continue thinking up big ideas in the future.

• Jack Evans | Reporter
• Aussie Inventions: Behind the News | history
• The Winners: Little Big Idea | weblink
• Australian Inventions: Australia.gov | weblink
• Australian Inventions that changed the world: Australian Geographic | weblink
• Australia | Map
• Young Inventors | Worksheet
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