A 12-year-old Dunedin boy has achieved what was previously believed impossible - turning Donald J. Trump's Twitter ramblings into a work of musical creativity.
``#FakeNews is distorting democracy in our country'' and ``Even a dinner ... is made to look sinister'' might not sound like lyrics you would hear from the mouth of Snoop Dogg or Eminem - and they are not.
They are the words of the 45th president of the United States and thanks to Isaac Randel's Rapbot invention they can be heard rhythmically rhymed next to hip-hop's elite.
Rapbot takes tweets and direct messages from Twitter, adds an intro and an outro lyric, and sets the ensemble to music.
It was one of about 270 entries in this year's Otago Science and Technology Fair.
Rapbot is open to suggestions.
``It could follow Donald Trump [on Twitter] and rap Donald Trump's latest tweet,'' Isaac said.
In fact, Mr Trump's Twitter feed was used during testing and provided many moments of hilarity.
The miniature robot contains a speaker and a computer and, by the press of a button, puts together its raps drawing from the inspiration of Twitter and a bank of beats and lyrics.
Rapbot is even appropriately adorned in bling.
The idea came about as a result of a joking suggestion by his father, Isaac said.
``I was trying to think up ideas for it and my dad came up with it as a joke, but I decided to follow through with it because I thought it was such an absurd idea.''
It took between 20 and 30 hours to programme and build, including many after-school hours.
The projects at the fair ranged from the humorous to the healthy, such as Bill Campbell's ``You Better Run''.
The project aimed to improve children's scores on the beep test - a fitness test which pits child against machine as they attempt to complete 20m shuttle-runs in time with beeps which have a decreasing interval between them.
``You Better Run'' turned the fitness test into a game, complete with lights, to demonstrate where children needed to be in each interval.
``By turning it into a game, it can improve their scores a lot,'' the 13-year-old said.
``For the boys, I found that they improved their scores by 12% over just a regular beep test. And the girls improved 26% with the game applied.''
The idea came about as Bill was ``elaborating on one of my previous projects''.
``It makes sense because it's so hard and boring and ... [I was] trying to make it more fun so they almost want to keep going.''
Judging of the entries took place yesterday and would conclude today before the projects go on display to the public from 10am tomorrow.
Otago Science and Technology Fair convener Steven Sexton said 27 different schools were represented at the fair.
Pupils came from throughout Otago.
``Of the 270 entries, probably 170 to 200 of these will be awarded some prize,'' he said.
``These are the ones that the students send in because they enjoyed it or because it was their idea, and we have been given the best of the best.''
The fair is being held in the Hutton Theatre at Otago Museum.
A prizegiving will be held at 3pm on Sunday.
