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Three years ago Jack Penman was completing his seventh-form year; now he is an enterprising third-year electrical engineering student at Canterbury University who runs his own company, GPSE, specialising in electronic resources for use in science classes.

With the support of his former science teacher at Paraparaumu College, who was able to suggest what was actually required by teachers, Penman built a prototype data logger designed specifically for schools. It worked so well that Paraparaumu College immediately bought two.

Penman has continued to refine and improve his designs to the point where he operates commercially. As well as the data logger, GPSE produces a fully automatic weather station which can measure air temperature, relative humidity, sky brightness, wind speed and wind direction. Additional sensors can measure air pressure, rainfall and soil temperature. GPSE has also created software to use with the equipment, which is priced well below similar overseas products.

The data logger's rugged design makes it suitable for use in both the classroom and the field. If combined with a PC, it can graph temperature, voltage, current, light intensity and more, saving time and effort and making it easier to show relationships between recordings. As well as equipment, GPSE produces a series of experiment packs and manuals, all designed by teachers for the New Zealand Science and Technology Curricula. The company is now looking to expand into export sales.

Greg Walker, NZSM