TEN-year-old Lily Giles has a little idea that has the potential to become big.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The grade 4 student at St Kilian's Primary School had an idea to make train stations safer and entered it in Origin Energy's littleBIGidea competition.
The competition aims to foster creativity and innovation in students from grade 3 to 8 and could see Lily jetting off to NASA’s Cape Kennedy Space Centre later this year if she wins.
Lily's idea is to make it "easier and safer" for people to get on and off the train, particularly for parents to make sure prams did not roll off the platform.
Mum Kim Giles said Lily came up with the idea after seeing some boys jumping off the edge of a train platform.
Her 195-word entry outlines how a large metal plank to cover the entire edge of the platform would remove any gap:
"My idea is to help make trains station platform stations safer. The way that my idea will work is that the platform has always got a large metal plank going upwards on an angle away from the platform that covers the entire edge of the platform," the entry reads.
"This will do three things. The first thing is that it will make sure that prams and other items with wheels do not roll off the platform which will help to save baby's, toddler's and children's lives. The second thing that this idea will help to reduce is when the step between the train and the platform is too big and too high for some children and they cannot step that far, they will be able to walk up the ramp and not fall down the crack and get badly hurt or maybe even killed by the train and/or lost by their parents or guardian. The third and final thing that this will help is parents with prams or other items with wheels get their items up onto the train in an easier and safer way. This idea will basically make train station platforms safer and easier."