Water Projects Nab Scholarships

H2 Oh-so-smart science winners

Water is the key ingredient in two similar, and ingenious entries from students that gained them scholarships at this year’s WITT Taranaki Science and Technology Fair.

Marco Kraayenhof and Oliver Marsh both won their respective classes in the Technological Development section on how to remotely measure water levels in water tanks.

The two New Plymouth Boys’ High students also won a swag of other awards at Wednesday night’s awards ceremony at NPBHS, including scholarships worth $1500 from Primo for their clever use of technology.

Primo’s managing director, Matt Harrison, says he is keen to promote information and communications technology (ICT) in Taranaki and both the students had projects that showed off their skills and their great use of practical tech.

Marco’s project, Tank Trouble, won the Year 11-13 section with his way to measure the level of water in a water tank using an ultrasonic sensor tied together with an Arduino microcontroller kit. His system can check rainfall and gutter flows to give a good measure of what was happening with storage water flows.

Oliver’s system, What’s Left in the Tank, used an Internet of Everything (IoT) sensor that sent data about his rural home’s water tank system to a cloud service so it could be read remotely by mobile phones. The Year 10 winner of the development technology section said his system will help plan water use at his home over summer and tell when to transfer water from other water tanks.

Harrison says he entered the Taranaki science fair as a student and he’s never lost his love of technology, which he has put to use building Primo’s broadband around Taranaki.

“These kids are the future of tech, and I’m rapt to be able to encourage them along.”

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