Young Engineer of Year praised for cubicle cleaner

Northern Ireland-based Daniel Broderick has picked up the Lamma Young Engineer Award, gaining the support of the judges and the public vote for his ride-on cubicle cleaner, which he has spent the past nine years developing.

The award is run in partnership with the Institution of Agricultural Engineers and showcased the work of three finalists and their engineering masterpieces.

See also: FW Farm Inventions Competition returns with £2,550 prize pot

The inspiration for Mr Broderick’s machine came from his uncle, who struggled with manually brushing down cubicles on his dairy farm, having to scrape the slats and carry sawdust and lime to re-bed the stalls where the herd is housed.

This time-consuming process can take up to two hours a day for a 200-strong herd, and regular automatic scrapers only solve part of the problem – so, Mr Broderick set about making his own.

He said: “We decided that the best course of action was to make a machine that could do the three jobs in one.

“The big thing on a dairy farm is time saving. For a farm with 200 cubicles, depending on the layout, a farmer can go in on the machine and do the job in about five minutes, compared with spending around an hour using traditional methods.”

© Lamma/Daniel Broderick

Safety has also been a consideration when designing the machine, which prevents farmers from having to stand on the slats, which often become slippery. 

After gaining the praise of the judges, Mr Broderick said: “I realised I was a shortlisted finalist a few weeks back and I was quite happy with that in itself, but to win it was special – it’s a nice reward for all the years of hard work that have gone into it.”

Having sold several of the machines all across Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the plan for the future is to keep improving the product and to continue to sell them further afield.

The other two finalists were Christopher Chavasse for his lightweight, battery-powered, multipurpose field robot, and Connor Wise for his air source heat pump hot water system.