Page 103 - NHS Beyond the Classroom

Charmaine Hopa 2006

Charmaine receiving her award from David Oakley, National Project Manager, Schneider Electric NZ.

Every year the Electronics Industry Training big prizegiving at Auckland’s Sky City on Friday
Organisation (ETITO) run a presitigious national 3rd or November.
competition for young electronics inventors called Television cameras were there, as they are
“Brightsparks”. every year, profiling some of the young inventors
This year, for the first time, a Ngaruawahia and their inventions for current affairs programmes.
High School student Charmaine Hopa, entered.
She entered in the category of “Best
Adaptation of an Electronic Kitset” with a project
that incorporated an electric shock generator kit, a
small 1 watt amplifier kit and a picaxe
microcontroller chip.
She programmed the picaxe chip to make the
electric shock kit electrify a door handle and light a
blue LED, unless you pressed the special doorbell
button.
Once the button was pressed the chip would
then play the ‘Barbie Girl’ tune really loudly
through the amp.
It would then flick the LED to green and turn
the door handle off for about 5 seconds so you
could use the handle without getting shocked.
Fantastically, Charmaine’s entry gained third
place and she and her family were invited up to the