Even the earthquakes and lack of time hasn’t stopped Logan from doing what he enjoys most – programming, playing with electronics and creating something Da Vinci, Edison and Knuth would be proud of!

“In 2008 I went on a tramp with my uncle on the West Coast. He volunteers for the Paparoa Wildlife Trust and we were clearing traps set out every 100m. Of the 96 traps, the top 20 had not caught anything. That made me think about the inefficiencies of pest trapping. The Department of Conservation alone [there are several other groups that do trapping as well] spends $5 million a year on trapping. It is vital to the survival of our native bird species but could be done a lot smarter.

That year I made a model to demonstrate my concept of putting a unit in each trap to relay the status [whether or not the trap needs to be visited] down the line of traps to the bottom. I got this model to a hard wired, simple, but working stage.

This year I aimed to complete the project and make a system that is wireless, more capable, and feasible, with a goal of using it in real traps.

I found it really fun to interface with a wireless module with code I wrote myself, and for it to pretty much work first time. It was exciting enough to just read the device type off the module, let alone have two units communicate across my desk!

It would be cool to invent general artificial intelligence that matches or exceeds human intelligence, like AI in a Marvin the paranoid android of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy way rather than in the Skynet of the Terminator sort of way. It could do my homework for me – and would also be very useful for science.

After high school I want to do something along the lines of electronics, programming, science or maths.”