Dunedin students built a light that keeps birds out of tractors

Four Dunedin students turned a farm fire problem into a flashing light that fits under a tractor hood. RNZ reported on October 30, 2026, that Year 13 students at St Hilda's Collegiate, Alia Ryan, Neve Crossan, Bonnie Turner, and Lucia Russell, built the device through the Young Enterprise Scheme and named the company No Nest Technology.

Rural insurer FMG told RNZ that nests are linked to about $1.2 million in tractor-fire claims a year, and to about a third of the 100 such claims in the past three years. The same nests show up in quad bikes, side-by-sides, cars, and utes. Loss-prevention manager Abby France said starlings, which breed from September to December, can tuck a nest into a small space in the time it takes to stop for a cup of tea. She still wants drivers to open the hood and look before they start, and to leave the hood up when a machine is parked.

Ryan said the group grew up around farms and had heard of close calls. Zoom Tech director Richard Cathro helped them design and build the strobe. Twenty-five devices are with farmers in the region. Ryan said those farmers are reporting no birds and asking for a light in every machine. Nothing like it is on the market yet, she said. The company won the 2026 Young Enterprise Otago Company of the Year award earlier in the week, plus a mayor's award for commercialisation, and will represent Otago at the national final in Wellington in December. The students hope to keep the business after school. The report is about those 25 trials, not a finished national product.