Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of visiting Applidyne Engineering Design. Applidyne is a small engineering firm with a team of mechanical, mechatronic and electronic product design engineers. The company designs, engineers and even manufactures at small scale across many sectors, including automotive, mining, medical, consumer goods, defence and aviation. Despite their size they have been recognised as leaders in their field and received numerous professional awards for their design and engineering excellence, including the Australian design award and patrons award for their MineLab F3 Compact Mine Detector, made for the Australian Defence Force. One of their most unique engineering feats in development is a feral animal grooming trap. The trap targets feral cats, which are notoriously difficult to control, as they are very cunning and reluctant to take baits. The Felixer is now used extensively on Kangaroo Island. The traps incorporate artificial intelligence for species recognition and exploit the natural grooming behaviour of cats by spraying a poison onto their coats that they then ingest. Thank you to Applidyne director Paul van de Loo and engineers Millicent Russell and Ryan Schulz for showing me around their extraordinary facility. It's wonderful to see manufacturing still happening in South Australia.