Aussie agtech innovator Nick Seymour has received international recognition for one of his products at the 2022 Australian Good Design Awards.
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Five years ago Mr Seymour was working on the family farm at Vasey, near Hamilton in western Victoria, and commuting back to his home in Melbourne.
When he was away from the property he frequently worried about the livestock and if they had adequate access to water.
Instead of letting that anxiety get the better of him, the Farmo founder and general manager set out to create a simple solution, which he launched commercially earlier this year.
The Water Rat is a portable floating sensor that can be picked up and shifted from trough to trough when mobs of livestock are moved.
An accelerometer inside the device measures the angle at which it is floating while a GPS makes it possible to keep track of the devices after they have been moved.
The Water Rat also has a communication module, which sends data when things change.
"All water supply systems will fail occasionally and it is a tragedy if that leads to animals going without water," Mr Seymour said.
"The Water Rat can monitor your troughs and tank 24 hours a day, seven days a week and give you both immediate alerts as well as historical insight into water usage at each location."
The device was named a gold winner in the product design category of the Australian Good Design Awards, which was held in Sydney last month.
Good Design Australia promotes the importance of design to business, industry, government and the general public and the critical role it plays in creating a better, safer and more prosperous world, through its awards program.
These awards celebrate 11 design disciplines and cover more than 30 categories and sub-categories.
Entries comes in from around the world and are evaluated by more than 70 Australian and international designers, engineers, architects and thought leaders.
Mr Seymour was encouraged to enter the awards by the industrial design firm he worked with on the shape of the enclosure.
"Products are judged on three criteria - commercial impact, social impact and environmental impact - and the judges thought we were excellent on all those points," he said.
The judging panel was unanimous in awarding the Water Rat a Gold Design Award.
In a statement they said it was critical to monitor the availability of water to animals on a farm of any size.
"Applying the simple principle of replacing buoyancy with gravity by using an accelerometer and low power micro processing to detect a change in the tilt angle of a floating device within an animals water source is clever," the judges said.
"But, when such a device can then send a low water alert to the users' mobile phone or PC via narrowband signal, then it's brilliant.
"With its robust enclosure, easy installation and ability to run on a single battery for over a year, the Water Rat is a must for anyone farming animals.
"Additionally, the design allows for tethering within a water tank, that can trigger the tilt mechanism at a set depth."
Mr Seymour said an award like this was really helpful to keep progressing, especially considering some of the other winners were big corporations like Samsung.
He said it was heartening to see that small ideas could be recognised alongside much bigger and grander projects.
"Personally, I love it, because ours is a really simple idea," Mr Seymour said.
"I've always felt that it's good to attack small problems where you can actually achieve something, rather than have massive projects where you're often never going to get anywhere.
"We aren't trying to save world hunger or fix the planet with one product; our product lets you know when your animals are out of water and lets you know immediately so you can go help them."
