Kiwi TV show bringing inventions to life up for Emmy Kids Award

Luke Nola has been nominated for the episode Papernator on his show Let's Get Inventin'. Photo / Nick Reed

An innovative Kiwi kids television show screened in 32 countries is up for an International Emmy Award.

Let's Get Inventin', the brainchild of Auckland creator and producer Luke Nola, was last week nominated in the Kids: non-scripted entertainment category for the Emmy Kids Awards.

The show, which had its seventh season screened on TV2 last year, has been running for 10 years in New Zealand.

Kids aged 8 to 14 submit ideas about inventions for the show. Each season, about nine are picked to build and test their inventions with a team of top engineers and scientists. The budding inventors also compete for a $10,000 patent package.

So far, 12 patents have been granted for inventions from Let's Get Inventin'. One of the owners of the patents, aged 8, was the youngest New Zealander to be granted a patent for an invention.

Nola, who began working in kids television 15 years ago after a career in advertising, was "blown away" by the nomination.

"Kiwi kids, kiwi shows - we're all known for invention and innovation and I thought we really own that as a nation.

"I'm really proud that [in] a homegrown format, Kiwi inventive kids are taking on the world. Being nominated for an Emmy is probably one of the highest places they can get," Nola said.

The series format has also been bought by the BBC, which produced its own version of the young inventors show in the UK.

The seventh series episode which earned an Emmy nomination featured a paper delivery robot developed from an idea Hamilton 11-year-old Martin Van Blerk submitted.

"Martin is a paperboy and wanted to figure out a way of delivering papers and came up with Papernator, which is a robotic paper delivery machine that fires the newspapers with a canon," Nola said.

"We took it one step further with the University of Auckland and made it a ... hands-free controller like in a video game, so he can sit at home in front of the TV and remotely control his Papernator to go down the street and fire newspapers and deliver his paper route."

Nola, his wife Sandy Burgham and his business partner Neil Stichbury are due to attend the New York awards show on Friday.

While he hadn't written a formal speech for the event, Nola said he already knew who would get special mention if the show won.

"I'll be thanking my team."

This year, there are 23 nominees from 17 countries in six categories for the Emmy Kids Awards.