New Year 11 student, Lilly Haley-Farr, isn’t fazed by being the only woman in her BSSC Physics class. By lunchtime on her first day at the college, the former BSE student had also been filmed for a segment on Nine News about her selection for the National Questacon Invention Convention which she’ll attend in January 2020.

Lilly’s invention is a prototype pollen counter that has the potential to alert severe asthma sufferers to unfolding dangers in real time. She designed the ‘pollinator’ for a Thales and Bendigo Tech School Design competition which saw students work with engineers to design, test and market ideas to make the community safer.

“I’m very excited about the opportunity,” she told Alexandra Nelson from Nine News. “I hope the convention helps to build on my ideas and develop the pollen counter even further.”

Lilly is one of just 25 students nationally who will attend the convention at Questacon in Canberra that aims to enhance participants STEM skills and foster career opportunities.

She hopes to, one day, study biomedical engineering and perhaps work in advanced prosthetics. For now she’s happy to be stepping up to the next stage of her education at BSSC.