Nine-year-old inventor wins NZ patent prize
20 Nov 2008
A nine-year-old New Zealand boy has won a major patent prize by inventing an eco-friendly unit that turns food scraps into fertiliser without anyone having to leave the kitchen.
Ryan Nicholls of Glenfield, Auckland, came up with his 'Waste-Away' invention because he hated the chore of taking the family food scraps out to the composting bin.
So he invented an automatic system to save him the job and is now NZ$10,000 richer. He is also thought to have become New Zealand's youngest patent applicant.
Down the drain
Ryan's system takes scraps that are chopped in the waste disposal grinder attached to the kitchen sink and flushes them down a pipe with water. It then separates the liquid and the solids, and feeds the solids to a compost unit below the kitchen window.
The water from the waste disposal unit is used to turn a wheel that spins the separator and collector drum.
Fine tuning
Ryan says he realises his invention needs a bit of fine-tuning, but his patent application for the eco-friendly unit has been accepted by the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand.
He won the $10,000 patent prize package from NZ patent attorney firm A.J. Park and the Icehouse Business Incubator in this year's series of the TVNZ show 'Let's Get Inventin'.
Technical help
Technical expert Chris Chitty, from the School of Engineering and Advanced Technology at New Zealand's Massey University, worked with Ryan to turn his concept into a marketable product.
"My job was to work with Ryan's inventive imagination and add some practical know-how," said Mr Chitty.
Water power
Anton Blijlevens, a partner at A.J. Park, said that as far as he knew, Ryan was the youngest inventor to have a patent application accepted in New Zealand. He said the patentable aspect of the system was its innovative use of water.
"The gravity of the water powers a turbine which turns the drum that collects and dries the compost in a self-sufficient system."
More inventions to come
Ryan said he hoped to make "a little" money from the invention and he planned to look out for other ideas to patent.
"This won't be the only thing I invent," he said.
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