JACK’S A SAFE PAIR OF HANDS!
A KILLORGLIN Community College student’s pioneering tractor safety device won overwhelming acclaim at the National Ploughing Championship in Offaly last week, with thousands of votes helping him as he claimed two prestigious innovation awards.
15-year-old Jack Nagle’s ‘Tractor Safe Lock’ automatically engages a tractor’s handbrake when its driver leaves the seat. The device activates once a machine is taken out of gear, with a pressure switch in the seat pushing the handbrake into action once the driver leaves their chair.
The ingenious safety feature faced competition from almost 70 other companies, yet it still managed to pull in more than 2,000 public votes and 67 per cent of the total poll to win the People’s Choice Award in the Agriculture, Horticulture and Forestry category. Jack had already won a young innovator award earlier in the week.
“I was delighted to win, especially to get more than 67 per cent of the public vote,” Jack told The Kerryman. “I went up earlier in the week with my parents and it was great to win. I’m looking forward now to representing Kerry in the national Sci-Fest competition in November.”
Jack formulated the idea a few years after his grandfather was injured in a farming accident some years ago while attaching gear to a tractor. He had forgotten to engage the handbrake and became trapped when the machine rolled back.
James Maloney of co-organisers Enterprise Ireland said Jack Nagle represents one of the youngest winners to date, representing young entrepreneurial talent at its best and highlighting how Irish innovation is contributing to make farming practise safer.
“We wish Jack all the best in his business endeavours and Enterprise Ireland looks forward to working with him in the future.”
National Ploughing Association MD Anna May McHugh and Irish Farmers Journal Editor Justin McCarthy joined in congratulating the young winner.
The device had already scooped awards at the BT Young Scientist Exhibition in January and the Kerry leg of the Sci-Fest competition, and it wasn’t even Jack’s first venture as an inventor, as he explained.
He and Eoghan McKenna previously designed a medical cot elevated at an angle suitable for infants with reflux, headcolds and sinus irritation to get some rest. That innovation won the students a place at last year’s Maker Faire Exhibition in Rome, joining some 600 other young innovators from across Europe in the process.