BirdWatch & Biowool: Cashmore Scholar Turns Kiwi Ideas into Impact
A twin-track year of big ideas
Most third-year students talk about late nights and looming deadlines. Toby McGuffie talks about BirdWatch, a smart perch that weighs and tags native birds in real time, and a bio-resin wool composite light enough to replace plastic yet tough enough for furniture or coffins. Both projects earned A-plus grades, and both were supported by a Western Bay of Plenty family. Toby has met Richard and Andrea Cashmore and stays in regular contact with them.
Since 2017, the Cashmore Family Scholarship has provided $10,000 a year to one Tauranga Boys’ College leaver who needs financial support to follow their dreams of tertiary education. Fees, rent, specialist materials, whatever removes friction so these students can explore their ideas.
Spotlight 1: BirdWatch
Animal-Welfare Design asked students to lift the wellbeing of Aotearoa’s creatures. Toby’s team began with a question from the Department of Conservation (DoC): How can we gather nationwide data on native birds without blowing the budget? Their answer was BirdWatch, a speculative system pairing RFID-tagged birds with a solar-powered perch and a community-facing app.
- Volunteers fit a lightweight RFID band to tūī, korimako and other locals.
- When a tagged bird lands, the perch records weight, time and location, then pings the data to the cloud.
- The app shows users a live map and lets them “name” individual birds, building empathy and community engagement with the native birds.
A guest assessor summed it up: “Engaging multiple stakeholders and harnessing consumer participation to collect and disseminate data across a large area was pivotal to your design.”
Spotlight 2: Strong Wool Gets a Second Life
Material-Driven Design set a brief: turn under-valued strong wool into something new. While fine Merino still sells at a premium, about 80 percent of New Zealand’s clip is coarse cross-bred fleece, and total wool exports have fallen in NZ by 30% to $367 million in recent years. Many farmers now earn less than the cost of shearing.
Toby’s response was a sheet material made from woven strong wool and a gelatine-based bio-resin. Vacuum-pressed panels matched standard HDPE for flexural strength at 30 percent lower weight and can be reheated and re-moulded, keeping scraps out of landfill. Potential uses range from acoustic wall tiles to electric-scooter bodywork, but Toby set himself a tougher brief, Soft Return, a fully biodegradable coffin.
“Soft Return is an emotionally sensitive and beautifully considered project that I think you should be exceptionally proud of,” his tutor wrote.
The Scholarship Effect
Design research takes a lot of up money, lab fees, resins, CNC time. Without the Cashmore family's gift, Toby says he would have played it safe instead of chasing future-facing ideas. In his end-of-semester letter he notes:
“Having this scholarship over the past three years has taken a huge weight off my shoulders financially, but it’s also been an ongoing reminder that someone believes in what I’m doing.”
That belief, he says, helps him dig deeper into the values that drive his work, kaitiakitanga, circularity and empathy-centred design.
Where Next for BirdWatch & Biowool?
- BirdWatch – Over summer the team will refine the electronics and demonstrate a working prototype to DoC. Data from Wellington test gardens will feed into 2026’s NZ Garden Bird Survey.
- Biowool coffin – Toby is exploring fire-retardant additives with a Wellington circular-economy hub and sounding out local furniture makers for a pilot run in 2026.
Invitation to Students and Donors
- Future applicants – The 2026 Cashmore Family Scholarship opens in October via Tauranga Boys’ College. If you’ve got bold ideas and the grit to realise them, they want to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to the school to learn more.
- Prospective donors – Imagine your name behind the next breakthrough. One kōrero with Acorn can plant that seed: give once, we invest in perpetuity, and the earnings empower local talent year after year.
Kaitiakitanga begins at home. By backing innovators like Toby McGuffie, the Cashmore family, and every Acorn donor, helps transform under-appreciated resources into solutions that serve people, and the Western Bay of Plenty community.