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6 Tuesday <strong>January</strong> <strong>30</strong> <strong>2018</strong><br />
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi<br />
<strong>News</strong><br />
Bid to stop<br />
motor-cycles<br />
using<br />
Fendalton<br />
alleyway<br />
• By Julia Evans<br />
MOTOR-CYCLISTS using<br />
a pedestrian-only Fendalton<br />
alleyway as a shortcut may soon<br />
have to take the long route.<br />
City council staff have investigated<br />
possible options to deter<br />
motorcyclists and cyclists and<br />
improve safety of pedestrians<br />
using the alleyway on Coldstream<br />
Court and Barlow St<br />
following concerns raised by<br />
residents.<br />
Residents complained to the<br />
city council last <strong>January</strong> and<br />
two bollards were installed.<br />
Resident Hamish Martin<br />
wrote to the city council<br />
describing an accident he saw<br />
between two young cyclists.<br />
In a report to the Fendalton-<br />
Waimairi-Harewood Community<br />
Board, city council staff<br />
said there are several possible<br />
option for the board to consider.<br />
Staff said the preferred option<br />
was to improve visibility between<br />
people nearing the access<br />
way by lowering the height of<br />
the two boundary fences.<br />
Building robot to beat beach mess<br />
• By Julia Evans<br />
E WEN Wong doesn’t want to<br />
grow up in a world polluted by<br />
plastic.<br />
So the 15-year-old Burnside<br />
High School student has begun<br />
designing a robot to detect<br />
plastic in beaches, rivers and the<br />
ocean.<br />
“While it’s still in early stages,<br />
I’ve already had a lot of support<br />
and direction from experts like<br />
Brendon and Chris from NIWA,<br />
Brendon from ThisDesign<br />
and April from Limitless who<br />
have been super keen to push<br />
my project along and offer<br />
their expertise which is really<br />
exciting,”<br />
E Wen said.<br />
She’s named her robot BIRD,<br />
which stands for Biomimicry<br />
Identification Robot Device and<br />
fortunately it’s also shaped like<br />
a bird.<br />
“As part of this, I am<br />
designing an unmanned aerial<br />
vehicle capable of detecting and<br />
locating macro-plastics such<br />
as plastic bags and bottle tops<br />
using either laser diodes or<br />
machine learning software to<br />
rapidly autonomously identify<br />
rubbish from a camera feed,” she<br />
said.<br />
The plastic will then be tagged<br />
and linked to a crowd sourced<br />
clean-up app that guides rubbish<br />
collectors to dispose of it, she<br />
said.<br />
“It’s only in the design stage<br />
at the moment, but it’s pretty<br />
cool,” she said. “I like the way<br />
technology can be used to help<br />
the environment.”<br />
E Wen has been working<br />
on the designs for her BIRD<br />
through the advocacy<br />
WESTERN NEWS<br />
FUTURE: 15-year-old<br />
E Wen Wong is developing a<br />
robot to collect plastic from<br />
beaches in her bid to spread<br />
awareness about climate<br />
change. <br />
organisation she set up at school,<br />
P.S Our Beaches.<br />
“It’s all about spreading<br />
awareness about the<br />
environment and climate<br />
change,” she said.<br />
Her passion for the<br />
environment has been there for<br />
as long as she can remember.<br />
But E Wen said it was when she<br />
was 10-years-old she started<br />
looking into climate change.<br />
“I got into meteorology and<br />
climatology. I’ve been hooked<br />
ever since then,” she said.<br />
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