Surprise award for Gudgeon Pro tool

Gudgeon Pro 5 in 1 inventor Patrick Roskam has beat out much bigger agricultural companies and gained another award after attending several Fieldays.

He invented the fencing tool at the age of 11 for a school science fair. The now 14-yearold and his parents took a working holiday and attended the Northland Fieldays in Dargaville, the Central Districts Fieldays in Feilding and the South Island Agricultural Field Days in Kirwee recently.

The South Island event was very rewarding for the Roskams. Patrick entered the South Island Agri Innovation Awards in class 2, which was for farm aids and tools and farm inventions.

‘‘ There were a massive 13 other entries in this category,’’ Patrick said. He had to tell five judges about the Gudgeon Pro. ‘‘I was up against some big companies such as Dow AgroSciences and Te Pari Products so I was hoping to possibly get a merit award but I was blown away when they announced I had won that class. It was awesome to get validation again that I had a great product, especially compared to such successful companies with teams of people and departments behind them.’’

The award also came with a ‘‘big surprise of $1000’’ but he thought the award was more important.

He also fulfilled a dream of getting on to prime time news. He had already been interviewed by Seven Sharp in 2013, which he said had been ‘‘awesome but everyone watches the news’’. ‘‘ I was a bit shocked when they came to interview me about my product as the winner of class 2 and was stoked when I got a massive 30 seconds on One News.’’

The Roskam family will continue to exhibit, including at the National Fieldays in June at Mystery Creek where he will be in the main pavilion.