Oliver-Nicholls

[Music plays and photographs flash through of young students]

[An Australian map and text appears: BHP Billiton Foundation Science and Engineering Awards 2018]

[Image changes to show a rear and then facing view of Oliver Nicolls walking down a path, folding his arms and looking at the camera]

Oliver Nicolls: Hi, I’m Oliver Nicolls and I’m in Year 12 at Barker College.

[Camera zooms in on Oliver smiling at the camera and then the image changes to show Oliver talking to the camera]

My project was an “Autonomous Robotic Window Cleaner” for medium rise commercial buildings.

[Image changes to show a rear then facing view of Oliver walking down a path towards his autonomous robotic window cleaner]

My project is fully autonomous, doesn’t require any human interaction.

[Image changes to show a view of the robotic window cleaner in operation moving back and forth and up and down a window frame]

Once it’s set up it… it can clean large commercial buildings and cross the mullions, the dividers between the windows by using drone motors and propellers to fly off the window and then go around the façade obstacles.

[Image changes to show Oliver sitting in a chair and talking to the camera]

My inspiration came from, at school I was looking for a project to do and I was talking to the OH & S people about safety incidences and discovered that someone had fallen off a glass pane they were cleaning and at a similar time there was a collapse of a gantry in the city. And so, these two… two things combined for me to go, “Why can’t I just automate, make that a robot, why does that need to be a person doing a dangerous activity, why can’t that just be a robot that goes and does it?”.

[Images move through of close-up view of a propeller blade spinning, Oliver fiddling with the wiring, views of different angles of the robotic window cleaner and then Oliver talking]

There was lots of aspects in this project where I was like, “Can I actually do that, is that going to be feasible?” synthesising into the, into a final machine came much later down the track after I’d done lots of testing, lots of kind of small components before I put it into the big one. I couldn’t just dive straight in. It was too complicated, too many unknowns.

[Image changes to show three people looking at a machine lifting boxes and then the image changes to show a male catching a ball from a ball thrower machine]

I have always loved to tinker, always loved, always been interested in science and in engineering.

[Image changes to show Oliver sitting down and talking to the camera]

So, it seems to me like an easy way to make a real impact on the world because you can develop a product or a system that can change millions of lives.

[Image changes to show several males standing around watching a crate stacker type machine and then the camera zooms in on Oliver next to the crate stacker smiling at the camera]

The opportunity to always be learning, that seems like a really great thing.

[Image changes to show Oliver sitting down and talking to the camera]

As a child I was interested in how things work, why things work, I was inquisitive and Dad being an engineer fostered that, nurtured that, grew that kind of inquisitiveness.

[Images move through of Oliver looking at a bike tyre spinning, Oliver putting the bike brake on, Oliver oiling the chain on the bike and Oliver lifting the bike off a stand]

I love to cycle, I love to swim, I love to play water polo. So, outdoors is really exciting. I love to go hiking and getting outside and experiencing the outdoors is a great thing.

[Images move through of a rear view of Oliver cycling down a path, an aerial view looking down on Oliver cycling along a road, Oliver talking to the camera, the robotic window cleaner and Oliver talking]

Being a finalist to me not only has the great opportunities of placing my project on the national stage at a really high level but also the opportunity to be able to spend a week with a large group of like- minded, intelligent, driven people is a really exciting prospect.

[Camera zooms in on Oliver as he talks]

So, many ideas flow. It’s really… it’s exciting.

[Music plays and an Australian map and text appears: BHP Billiton Foundation, Science and Engineering Awards, 2018]