The Country: Auckland-based industrial designer Nicole Austin has invented Moray, a hand-tool designed to help improve usability, performance and stock wellbeing.
A re-designed lamb docking or tailing iron has won the New Zealand leg of the prestigious James Dyson Award for design engineers.
Many sheep farmers can experience repetitive strain injuries from using traditional tools during the seasonal process of removing lambs' tails, commonly known as docking.
Fluctuations in blade temperatures can cause considerable pain for the lambs, often leading to ineffective cauterisation and stock mortality.
Auckland-based industrial designer Nicole Austin has invented Moray, a hand-tool designed to help improve usability, performance and stock wellbeing.
The current docking tool still commonly used was conceived in the 1960s. Austin says the current docking tool is primitive and arduous on farmers' hands.
"I've refined the tool to be 35 per cent lighter and to use 60 per cent less hand span than the docking iron currently used by New Zealand farmers. Repetitive strain injury occurring to the hands of ageing farmers is very common, and my new design aims to overcome this," said the Massey University industrial design graduate.
Using piezoelectric igniting, Moray has a specialised double-chamber dampening shaft for reliable weather-proofing and consistent blade temperatures for clean cauterisation.
Effective docking significantly reduces lamb morality and has a positive impact on the health and productivity of the animals involved.
The product prototype has been developed, and Nicole is now hoping to enter Moray into the next development phase of functional testing.
Massey University industrial design graduate Nicole Austin with her lamb docking tool, Moray. Photo / Supplied
James Dyson Award New Zealand head judge and president of The Designers Institute, Mike Jensen, said the judging panel was impressed by Austin's deep exploration into how the product may provide significant improvements for animal welfare and user comfort.
"Nicole visited a series of farms to interview farmers, ran surveys and undertook rigorous design workshops during the research phase. She also spent time docking to truly understand the process and the current challenges faced by farmers during the highly labour-intensive docking season. The result is a prototype design that will save time and definitely effort, and is a major advancement on what is currently being used by farmers" said Jensen.
"Moray is a relatable product for our agricultural country. It's exciting to see a functional and rugged design that has been well researched, and that holds much commercial potential for domestic and international markets," Jensen added.
Moray is a hand-tool designed to help improve usability, performance and stock wellbeing. Photo / Supplied
Nicole's entry has won her £2000 (approximately NZD$3500), with Moray progressing to the international round of the James Dyson Award competition with a chance to win the grand prize of NZD$50,000 to put towards commercialising their ideas, plus NZD$8,000 for the designer's university. The international winner will be announced on 26 October, 2017.
Supported by the James Dyson Foundation, the James Dyson Award is run in 23 countries to recognise emerging designers who have developed inventions that solve real world problems. The competition brief is to design something that solves a problem, big or small.
