Year 4 student Xinjie has won the Years 3-4 category of the LittleBigIdea competition for her invention to enhance safety at pedestrian traffic lights.

The nine-year-old came up with the idea after witnessing a man in a wheelchair trying to secure his wheels before reaching for the traffic light button and her mother struggle to secure a pram safely on unstable ground next to the lights. ‘When I went home I picked up the television remote to turn on the television and suddenly thought that a remote for traffic lights would be a really good idea,’ Xinje says.

Xinjie’s design was selected from more than 1000 entries submitted to the national competition. She won $1000 and the chance to participate in an Engineers Without Borders design workshop. She is now in the running for the chance to win a trip to the NASA Kennedy Space Centre in the United States.