John McGlashan College pupil Cheng-Yueh Liu (16, left)
displays the Windows sidebar application he created. Photo
by Craig Baxter.
From filling spare time to being a finalist in a national
electrotechnology competition, Cheng-Yueh Liu's Liu Dashboard
is taking him places.
The John McGlashan College pupil has been interested in
design technology since he was a 5-year-old, and designing
and creating software is now one of his hobbies.
His most recent invention allowed him to fill a want - a
Windows sidebar, like those available with Windows Vista.
Because he did not have the Vista operating system, he
decided to create his own program which would be compatible
with all systems.
The application allowed the user to manage all their
multimedia needs, he said.
"It was challenging trying to solve all the technical
difficulties by myself, but learning new concepts, problem
solving and logical reasoning skills was great," he said.
Cheng-Yueh entered the application in the New Zealand Bright
Sparks Competition and was announced as a finalist last week.
Having only discovered the Bright Sparks programme a couple
of months ago, he was still familiarising himself with how it
worked, but intended to become more involved with the
programme's 2300 other members.
Because his dream job was not as a software developer, but as
a design engineer, Cheng-Yueh intended to enrol at the
University of Canterbury's College of Engineering when he
finished school, and keep programming as a side interest.
Taieri College pupil Ben Mulholland (above) with a picture
of his Need 4 Speed laser timing device. Photo by Craig
Baxter.
Dunedin's other Bright Spark finalist is Taieri College
pupil Ben Mulholland. He again made the finals of the
competition, this time with his Need 4 Speed laser timing
device.
The invention also won top place at the Aurora Otago Science
and Technology Fair this year.
However, Ben did not think the timer would go as far as his
iPod Super Dock, which won the Bright Sparks competition last
year and went on to win the engineering category at the
International Science and Technology Fair in Taiwan.
Compared to the dock, the laser was not as technologically
complicated, but with more development, it had the potential
to be marketable, he said.
Ben was already on to his next big invention, though he
remained tight-lipped, other than saying "touch screen".
He believed some "quite impressive" projects had made the
finals of the Bright Sparks Competition. One in particular
was a device to improve posture by monitoring vertebrae via a
skin-tight cloth layer.
"It's got a lot of potential," he said.
• To see other entries in the Bright Sparks Competition, and
vote for your favourite, visit www.brightsparksawards.org.nz
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