Emmanuel College, St Stephen’s College and Helensvale State High School top Gold Coast Mayor’s Technology and Innovation Awards
Gold Coast school students have butted heads in a Shark Tank-style face-off – one group took out top prize for ingenious dental tech. Here’s 10 interesting innovations which emerged.
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Gold Coast school students have butted heads in a Shark Tank-style tech face-off, with four schools nabbing accolades for their innovations.
In the end, Emmanuel College took home the top prize in the Mayor’s Technology and Innovation Awards thanks to their new dental disease detection technology dubbed SmilePal.
The innovation by Bradley Cox (year 11) and Caleb Yates (year 10) uses artificial intelligence, thermal technology and a smartphone to detect gum disease, cavities and potential dental emergencies.
Smilepal is a low-cost, clip-on device which extends a phone’s camera, allowing it to scan a user’s mouth.
Emmanuel College Dean of Faculty Eli Shambrook said he was proud of Bradley and Caleb’s “innovative” work.
“These Emmanuel College students, who now have proof of concept, began their empathy journey considering the needs of the GCUH (Gold Coast University Hospital) emergency department,” he said.
BELOW: ALL THE FINALIST PITCHES
“Hoping to reduce unnecessary dental emergencies, they developed an infra-red attachment for smart phones to detect inflammation in gums.
“It’s very satisfying to see our students’ creativity, innovation and technical skills being used in service to others. I would like to thank Study Gold Coast for providing a wonderful opportunity for students to develop their products and business ideas.
“I also congratulate all the other school entries and applaud the time and effort put in by each student.
“There could have been many winners. I am astounded at the ingenuity of Gold Coast youth. “They prove that all that is needed for innovation to thrive is a positive outlook, curiosity, and a desire to learn.”
City students were asked to solve a local problem, so the Emmanuel team decided to help GCUH – the busiest emergency department in the country.
The boys believe their tech has the potential to reduce dental emergency admissions.
The competition’s Final Pitch Night held at Bond University on September 14 was closely contested.
Runner up was the SafeCoast team from St Stephen’s College. They developed a personal drug detection strip to prevent drink spiking;
Third place went to Helensvale State High School with DefibMap. It’s an app that finds defibrillators to save lives by improving heart attack response times.
The awards, conducted by Study Gold Coast with the City of Gold Coast, Cohort Innovation Space and Bond University, is in its in eighth year and is open to all students from years 8-12. Leading entrepreneurs hold workshops to help develop, refine and market concepts.
SmilePal earned $5000 for Emmanuel College, along with gift vouchers of $1000 to the team members, and a tech talk from Cohort Innovation Space.
Mayor’s Technology and Innovation Awards – Winners
- 1st: SmilePal – Bradley Cox and Caleb Yates, Emmanuel College.
- 2nd: SafeCoast – Daniel Davies-Pryce, Keira Ferrier & Izzy Partridge, St Stephen’s College.
- 3rd: DefibMap – Emma Byrne and Caitlyn Donnelly, Helensvale State High School.
- People’s Choice – Turbo Air – Jessie Hudson and Kylie Carrigan, St Hilda’s School.
Mayor’s Technology and Innovation Awards – Finalist Pitches
SafeCoast – Saint Stephens College
The problem of drink spiking, and date rape is a global issue that is not going away anytime soon, but with SafeTape, drink spiking can be significantly reduced. SafeTape is an innovative, simple-to-use, personal Drug Detection Device. SafeTape comes as a single-use strip or a 10 pack the size of a credit card, that a user can dip into their drink to detect common date rape drugs.
SmilePal – Emmauel College
Using thermal technology, artificial intelligence, and the common phone, SmilePal provides early detection for gum disease, cavities, and other potential dental emergencies. A simple, low-cost, clip-on device that extends your phone’s camera, allowing your phone to intelligently scan your mouth. Users of SmilePal enjoy peace of mind, while the broader community benefit due to a lower number of dental-related hospital admissions. With
the Gold Coast being home to the busiest Emergency Department in Australia, SmilePal would be an effective countermeasure.
CelluLife – Queensland Academy Health Sciences
CelluLife is an innovative solution to plant-based food waste recycling. The project aims to extract cellulose from fruits and vegetables to be converted into sustainable housing insulation for both businesses as well as local developments across Australia and even worldwide. Our vision is a world where waste is recycled responsibly and efficiently. Our communities will become self-sustainable and ethically constructed.
Carbon Countdown – Queensland Academy Health Sciences
The Carbon Countdown is a free app that tracks your carbon emissions from grocery shopping. Each item at the grocery store has a special ID and is linked with The Carbon Countdown app to indicate how much carbon emissions are produced by the product, providing you with an achievable monthly goal to gradually meet, whist offering financial rewards. This innovation addresses the carbon emissions crisis that the Gold Coast is
facing through taking real, measurable action that starts with you.
Town Mate – Queensland Academy Health Sciences
From overcoming language and cultural barriers, to finding jobs, housing or even cultural groceries, these are just a few of the biggest challenges that immigrants face and TownMate is here to help. TownMate is a digital app which is a one-stop-solution containing all relevant services in order to thrive in a new country. Whether its providing legal advice in one’s chosen language or knowing what events are on in your cultural community, TownMate makes the transition of settling down smoother.
JunkBot – Queensland Academy Health Sciences
The Gold Coast wastes $7 million annually cleaning up litter. The world? More than $13 billion and rising. To address this, we proudly introduce JunkBot. JunkBot is a solar-powered smart bot that utilizes the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, and Sensor technology to collect and sort litter efficiently. Our solution produces a cleaner world and eliminates litter cleaning costs, so the money can be redirected to help improve societies.
Turbo Air – St Hilda’s School
Turbo Air is a modular fan generator that harvests wind to help produce energy to power electric vehicles. The generator comes with an additional app to complement the product and to provide carbon saving statistics and exhilarate the consumer, with sustainable rewards and perks. As a team, we strive to bring enhanced values, utility and improved methods of sustainability to the Gold Coast
Driving for Innovation – The Southport School
Worried about how many drinks you’ve had? Not sure if you’re okay to drive? Well, look no further, Driving for Innovation has you covered. The Gold Coast Drink Safe app tracks your BAC levels through easily scanning the barcode or entering the name of any of the over 900 brand name or generic drinks in our database. The app is linked to safe public transport and commissioned rideshare options, allowing you to get home and enjoy your night carefree!
Onboard – Merrimac State High School
Due to recent economic fluctuations, Gold Coast residents are finding unprecedented financial burdens being placed on them. To ease this ongoing pressure, we are proposing the upcycling of retired buses to provide much needed services and support. So let’s all get onboard Gold Coast!
DefibMap – Helensvale State High School
DefibMap is an app that shows the user the location of defibrillators near them. The app also informs users about how to use defibrillators and why it is important to know how they are used to spread awareness about defibrillators. This is because of the increasing risk of heart failure and the growing importance of medical information in our local communities.
Originally published as Emmanuel College, St Stephen’s College and Helensvale State High School top Gold Coast Mayor’s Technology and Innovation Awards
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