Find out how drone chainsaws could actually improve health and safety
Researchers from the University of Canterbury have successfully developed chainsaw drones. It comes off the back of eight years of development aiming to build drones that can traverse complex environments. The team has heard from multiple businesses that agree these drones could vastly improve the health and safety of their staff. Computer science professor Richard Green led the project.
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RNZ News
21 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Chatham Islands building materials rusting 50 times faster than rest of NZ
BRANZ senior scientist Zhengwei Li. Photo: Supplied Building materials on the Chatham Islands are rusting up to 50 times faster than on the mainland, according to research by locals and the Building Research Association. Surrounded by sea and exposed to the elements 800 kilometres out in the South Pacific, the working theory is that salt-laden winds are to blame. Denis Prendeville, a sixth-generation Chatham Islander, had spent 23 years building fences for the Department of Conservation - so he knew well the island's rugged environment . "A hundred years ago, it was forested," he said. "Well, through clearing bush for grazing, the wind has actually finished off a lot of the remaining bush on the Chathams, so it's quite bleak in places." Now, reforestation work was underway, and pests needed to be kept out. "You haven't got anything if you haven't got a fence," Prendeville said. But using all the normal materials, a fence on the coast could rust through in seven years. Prendeville had learned ways around it - using thicker wire, and plastic inserts to keep metal from touching metal, which were the areas which tended to rust first. In the swamps, he usually skipped the bottom two lines of wires, as they tended to rust through in a year. But across the board, things needed replacing more often . "The expense on the Chathams, well you just double it to the New Zealand standards," Prendeville said. Building Research Association (BRANZ) team leader Dr Anna de Raadt said the working theory was that the salt-laden winds could be to blame, with gales picking up the sea spray and throwing it onto fences and roofs, speeding up that rusting process. She said their research has been a collaboration with the community. "Talking to the people living there, it's amazing to hear stories," she said. "One of them really brought it home for me. They were saying, 'Oh we buy a car, bring it over from the mainland to the island, and within three years it's rusted out.'" Scientists set up four racks of metal squares around the island, and left them out in the elements for a year. The metal testing samples. Photo: Supplied De Raadt explained one set was set up at a local school. "And it was really fantastic to see their eyes light up and actually hold the samples and look at them, because they'd see something like a beautiful, shiny metal coupon, and they'd compare it to one looking like a swiss cheese." The results showed corrosion levels were off the charts. An unprotected carbon steel plate, a millimetre thick, was completely gone within a year, despite lasting more than 50 in rural inland areas. BRANZ established more sites, and confirmed the results - the corrosion rates were among the highest defined by international standards. Carbon steel, used in common building products like beams, framing, and nuts and bolts, corroded at a rate more than 22 times faster than inland New Zealand, and more than three times the rate at our harshest coastal sites, like Oteranga Bay in Wellington, and nearly double the highest corrosion rate recorded at marine sites in Europe. "We are testing other materials to see how they will perform on the Chatham Islands environment," de Raadt said. "This then can help inform people's choices about what material to use where." "I guess the main point for us is: the right material in the right place." The current rating system fell short. BRANZ senior scientist Zhengwei Li said materials approved for Zone D - the classification long-held by the Chathams - just didn't hold up. "If you use materials approved for Zone D corrosivity in the Chatham Islands, you will have early material failure." The Chatham Islands Photo: RNZ/ Matthew Theunissen Building company owner Leith Weitzel moved to the Chathams from Wellington just over a decade ago, and said it was definitely an eye-opener. "So up in the eaves of sheds or houses, where you would have some sort of mild steel product or galvanised steel product, if it's not getting rain washing on it, it will start to show corrosion in a few years." It changed the materials they used. "We always opt to use stainless steel externally as much as we can, and we find that's made a huge difference." But even using marine-grade stainless, tea staining - that is, those patchy orange streaks that appeared on metal like water from a tea bag - still occurred. Weitzel said people were often tripped up. "They might buy a flatpack shed or they'll buy a tiny home, something that's of a kit-set nature, and they express that it is quite corrosive and windy and wild over here, and these manufacturers don't supply some of these buildings, these units up to standard, and they find over time that they have used the wrong nails and structural fittings." It was an awareness problem, he said - something the building research association hoped to improve as it took on further tests. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Big investment payouts even experts let get away
Photo: AFP / Spencer Platt / Getty Images If you've ever wished you put a few dollars into Bitcoin when it was changing hands for pocket change or snapped up Apple shares when they were selling for cents, you're not alone. Even investment experts have ones that got away. Here are some of the investments we regret missing out on. Hamilton Hindin Greene investment advisor Jeremy Sullivan said someone who had invested $10,000 in Amazon's IPO in 2007 would have just under $30 million now. They would have had to stick with it through some volatility along the way though, including through the 'Dot Com' crash, when its share price fell by more than 90 percent. Devon Funds Management retail head Greg Smith agreed Amazon could be a missed opportunity - it traded for US7c in May 1997, but shares are now more than US$220. Bitcoin has been the outperformer of the investment world recently. Chartered accountant and chief executive of Swyftx digital investment platform Jason Titman said, if someone had invested $36,500 in Bitcoin over the past decade - equivalent to $10 a day - they would now hold a portfolio worth about $2.8 million. Smith said he was in London in 2013, when Bitcoin was $1000. "A crypto fanatic told me to buy it, I hadn't even heard of it and didn't." Smith said he also regretted not buying A2 Milk shares, when they were 2c in 2004. The share price hit more than $20 in 2020 and is about $8.60 now. Smith said he also regretted missing out on Apple in the 1980s, when it regularly changed hands for less than US30c and is now more than US$210. Smith said Nvidia was up 66000 percent since its IPO in 1999 and up 1500 percent since 2020. In July, it became the world's first US$4 trillion company. The surge was driven by demand for its chips, which are used in AI. "There have been lofty expectations, but they've been delivering on that," Smith said in June. "They've ridden the generative AI boom and it's getting real demand." Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen said not buying into Facebook in the early days was one of his regrets. You could buy shares for about US$20 in 2012 and they are worth more than US$770 now. "In hindsight, there's heaps I wish I bought," Olsen said. "Probably buying a property when I was a baby, that would have been my best investment, but there's also enough that I remember thinking about that had as much attention at the time about 'you should buy now' that I'm glad I never bought either - remember NFTs? "There's a range of products or options that were complete losers, and there were others that performed really well. That's the risk you'd have taken and why I don't really have any massive regrets. "I was happy with my risk tolerance at the time and still am." Kernel founder Dean Anderson said, rather than an investment he wished he had bought, there was one he should not have sold. "In my last year of university, 15 years ago, I bought a 1967 series 2 Land Rover. It was an absolute original, all the spare roofs, paperwork and just two owners - the army and then a retiree, who used it for his annual duck hunt. "I paid $1800 for the whole lot. While there was definitely a sense of 'what the hell did you buy that for' from dad, soon enough, he was out and about driving it. "It was an absolutely amazing vehicle, and responsible for many summer road trips and wine tours. Sold it a couple of years later, when it was hard to find somewhere to store it. "I made three times my investment on it, plus plenty of memories, but it would be 30 times that today - and who knows how many more memories." Property investment coach Steve Goodey said owning a big plot of land "just about anywhere" in Auckland 10 years ago would have made someone wealthy. New Zealand's median house price has increased from about $170,000 in 2000 to just under $800,000. As rules have changed, parcels of land that could be subdivided or house more properties have experienced significant increases in value. Between August last year and July this year, RocketLab shares increased from about US$5 to US$51. CoreLogic research head Nick Goodall said that benefited some members of his family - but not others. "We have a small Hatch account for our children, a way of teaching them about money," he said. "We said to the kids, 'What would you like to invest in?' "'You watch Disney, do you want to buy some shares in Disney? You're into sport, do you want to buy Nike?' "'You like rockets, do you want to buy RocketLab?' "This is very small scale, but we ended up buying some shares for our middle child, and there's been a 60 percent increase in three months or whatever. His sister's, like, 'I want some of that'. "In hindsight, it's anything that's seen strong growth in value over time. I like the idea of what has done well, but also sits morally with you." Koura founder Rupert Carlyon said he wished he had gone into the S&P500 ETF 20 years ago "and kept on doubling it". "A safe, low-risk investment that has done extremely well. "I simply wish I had known how easy investing could be much earlier." Simplicity chief economist Shamubeel Eaqub said he had some investments he regretted getting into, such as Ubco, which collapsed in January, but was recently saved . "I have many such stories, but that's my fun money - mainly for start-ups, some of which become big payoffs. "The savings I have are in diversified portfolios, because stock picking and timing the market aren't things I can do consistently. I think focussing on one or two that got away, which can of course make someone immensely rich, distracts from the wider story of what works, regular habitual savings and the power of compounding." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
13 hours ago
- RNZ News
15,000 students compete in Times Tables Rock Stars Mathematics competition
The education minister was a keen observer as thousands of school pupils around the country were put through their mathematical paces. About 15,000 students, between the ages of 7 and 13, took part in the Times Tables Rock Stars Mathematics competition on Thursday morning. The event consisted of two corresponding 30-minute questionnaires across the North and South islands, involving about 300 schools. James Meagher and Erica Stanford competing against each other and putting their maths skills to the test. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon Education Minister Erica Stanford and South Island Minister James Meagher watched competition proceedings at Christchurch's Somerfield Te Kura Wairepo. School principal Meagan Kelly said her students were "very focused" ahead of the competition. "This is the second Rock Star competition that we've done, so they're pretty keen, they're pretty well practised, and they do love it," she said. "That sense of competition is really amazing, so they really enjoy that." Students at Christchurch's Somerfield Te Kura Wairepo competing in the maths competition. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon The UK-based competition has been touring the world. Underlining the high-pressure nature of proceedings, the event was live-streamed over YouTube. The times table competition was also rejuvenating old rote learning techniques, Kelly said. "There is a bit of a revival in that we want them to have all of these facts locked into their brains, so it makes maths later on, a little bit easier for them as things get more complex." Ten-year-old Haval said he was put to the ultimate test. "I'm not at my best today. I'm usually 70 to 80 questions a minute, now I'm 40 to 50." Other pupils RNZ spoke to explained the competition was both "exciting, challenging, and nerve-wracking". Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon Stanford and Meagher were later strapped to their devices, their math skills were put under scrutiny in the ultimate North-South battle, as several pupils watched on. "We've got a South Island representative here in Minister James Meagher, I'm representing the North Island. But maths is the winner on the day right," Stanford said. It is understood Stanford earned bragging rights over her junior minister. Although it was all fun and games on Thursday, problem-solving of a different kind has been needed by Stanford. Eighteen errors were discovered in brand new ministry-funded maths resources. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon Mistakes include incorrect sums, a wrong number labelled in te reo Māori, and incorrectly saying "triangles" instead of "rectangles" in an answer. Speaking to reporters, Stanford defended the failure, explaining the sector had moved fast. "There was a very small handful of errors found by keen-bean mathematicians, good on them," she said. "These are existing resources and it was likely they were there for some time. "Actually we've been responsive, receptive. We've gone out to the classrooms and the schools and said if you find anything we'll fix it immediately, which we have. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
