Jonathan's on the road to success

11:10am Saturday 11th October 2008

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Devising a vehicle safety product has driven a 16-year-old inventor into a place in the final of a national contest.

Jonathan Mason, a former pupil of Ysgol Dyffryn Taf, Whitland, is on the road to a £3,500 first prize in the 2008 Goodyear Farming Innovation Award competition, thanks to his ingenious VanVice.

“The VanVice solves the difficulty of holding materials safe and secure while working on-site from the back of a mobile workshop,” said Jonathan, who is now studying at agricultural engineering college in Llanelli.

“It is located in the back of a van, and swings out to provide a safe and secure working platform on which to weld.”

The product has already gained accolades for Jonathan, and Dyffryn Taf’s Young Engineers’ Club, which has been chosen as the best young engineers’ club in Wales for the second year running.

The VanVice won the award for development and marketablility in the Young Engineer for Britain competition, where the judges commented that it was so well-manufactured that it could go on sale immediately. Jonathan will now be representing Wales with the VanVice in the 2009 contest.

It has also been entered into the forthcoming Innovation 2008 exhibition in Cardiff which celebrates the best work of Welsh design and technology exam students.

Meanwhile, the VanVice lines up against just two other bright agricultural ideas in the final of the Goodyear contest, and the results will be announced on Friday.

The tyre giant was particularly impressed with the invention, said spokeswoman Kate Rock.