While most of us spent the summer break enjoying the beach, last year's winners of the Young Innovator Award spent it coming up with ways to warn the public of the dangerous rips that plague our local waters.

Three Otumoetai College students, Hayden Christie, Frano Gabric, and Lachlan Farron, all 15, entered the Young Innovator Awards with their Swim Safe app. The idea was for an app linked to a cellphone's camera that could be used to identify rip currents.

Not only were the students the supreme winners of the award, they also won an internship with the awards' major sponsors, Locus Research and Woods Creative.

They completed the internship last week with a presentation highlighting changes that had been made as the idea has developed.

The internship is not necessarily awarded to the supreme winner, but the winner is selected on the basis of a "cool idea that can be developed," says Woods - The Creative Agency client manager Duncan Mckenzie.

Lachlan says the boys came up with the idea collaboratively.

"I'm a life guard at Omanu Surf Club and we thought it would be relevant to come up with an idea that had a community aspect for the Bay of Plenty region."

Lifeguards at our local beaches have already performed more than twice as many rescues this season as they did all of last summer.

Initial work at Locus Research led to a significant change.

"The original idea had to change because the technology wasn't available, so we had to work with the technology that is available," says Lachlan.

This meant a shift to a community-based app that could be used to tag rip currents on a map.

At Woods the boys had a brainstorming session.

"We sat down and talked about the whole idea - the values and the stuff we wanted the app to incorporate and wrote a brand strategy," says Lachlan.

The result was a change in the name to Ripstr and a better idea of the "look" and branding of the app.

Hayden says the internship has been valuable to see the processes involved in progressing an idea and he has learned things that will help at school.

The students intend to continue developing the idea, look at what commercial applications it might have and who to present it to for funding.

App tag on rips concept welcomed

Image: Allan Mundy

Surf Lifesaving New Zealand's national lifesaving services and education manager Allan Mundy welcomed the idea of tagging fixed rips via a phone app.

"Generally [fixed rips] are always there, as a result of a headland or trench or rocky outcrop - for example, either side of Leisure [Moturiki] Island," he says.

The strength of fixed rips varies with the tide and currents and at times they may not exist. "They could easily tag them to let people know they are there."

However, he says the rips that form on open coastlines, such as the stretch of beach between Mount Maunganui and Papamoa, can quickly move and because of that, there are too many risk factors involved in attempting to tag their location.

Local surf lifeguards are always monitoring beaches and often move the flags throughout the day to avoid rips as they form.

This article is reproduced from the Bay News by Stuart Whitaker
- Bay News