Monday, November 23, 2020

Necessity inspired teen's invention

 When Ayla Hutchinson of Taranaki, New Zealand, was 13, she saw her mother cut her finger with a hatchet while splitting kindling. Ayla became determined to find a safer way to cut firewood. She took up this challenge as a science fair project, and invented the Kindling Cracker, a cast iron tool that allows people to split kindling quickly and safely.


As you can see, the Kindling Cracker uses a built-in axe blade at the bottom of a safety cage. Just put the wood into the cage, atop the blade, and hit it with a hammer to split perfect kindling. Ayla's dad, Vaughn Hutchinson, helped her build the original prototype as a school project. Soon she was winning awards, including Regional Finalist at the Google Science Fair. Today the 21-year-old has built her invention into a thriving business which ships tens of thousands of Kindling Crackers around the world each month.


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