What do you do when you have a farming problem? You be creative and find a solution.
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This is exactly what Lily Seaton-Cooper did for her design and technology major work at Frensham in the Southern Highlands.
The year 12 student, whose family runs Circle 8 Bulls at Marulan, was asked to come up with a problem and fix it for her major work.
"I hate fencing, I find it difficult to do, so I thought there is my problem, now I have to think of a solution," Lily said.
She redesigned fencing pliers to be more ergonomic, comfortable and safe for women.
"I created my design by conducting research into torque principles, and anthropometric data and gaining target market feedback," she said.
Her research was based on musculoskeletal disorders and injuries that occurred in the workplace, with statistics showing that 84 per cent of serious claims about an injury in the workplace came from women.
"When creating my design, my research was more anthropometric to discover what the average female hand looks like, how much force it can produce," she said.
"I did lots of research into physics principles as well, in particular torque principles.
"Torque is a twisting or turning force that tends to cause rotation around an axis, which might be a centre of mass or a fixed point and its principles state that if you can double the length from the fixed point you can reduce the force by half."
She used this as the central idea of her design where she lengthened the plier handles by 10cm, which reduced the force required to cut wire by over 50pc (the original design takes 118 newtons of force to cut wire and the improved design only takes 67 newtons of force to cut.)
The handles of the pliers are directional, with one side having lots of small ridges for improved finger gripping and the other side having much longer ridges for added comfort on the palm.
For market feedback, she polled students in her class who were also farmers who said: 'I love them, they make the work so much easier and are so comfortable to use'.
"As well as this I took a survey and the feedback I gained was incredibly positive with 98pc of users finding the design comfortable and 100pc of people agreeing that the design is appropriate to meet the needs of women," she said.
Lily said manufacturers should look at the workforce in agriculture as they would find a significant portion were women.
"There are so many women in agriculture and so many who grow up and want a career in it," she said.
"Manufacturers aren't reaching that audience. It's a known fact we aren't stronger and have smaller hands, why not get a range for us? There is a massive opportunity waiting there."
The design was so good it scored her top rank in her class for the project.
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