**Boy invents hand-washing machine **

A nine-year-old Kenyan boy was given an award by the country’s president for inventing a hand-washing machine designed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Stephen Wamukota was among 68 people to receive The Presidential Order of Service, Uzalendo Award, in recognition of service to Kenya amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The boy’s innovative touch-free hand-washing machine is operated with a foot pedal that causes water and soap to be dispensed, saving users from having to touch any pieces of the machine.

Wamukota built the machine with help from his father, and it cost less than $30 to build.

World’s largest knitted bunting

Knitters from around the world submitted 79,001 yarn flags to set a Guinness World Record for the world’s largest knitted bunting, the British organisers of the effort said.

Deborah Custance Baker, chief steward for crafts and gardens with the Devon County Show, came up with the idea for the record attempt last year and put out an appeal for knitters around the world to send in flags to be strung together.

The flags were combined at Westpoint Arena in Exeter. The bunting was to be displayed at the Devon County Show, planned for August, but it was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It will instead remain at Westpoint Arena until September and the public will be allowed to view it on designated evenings.

The bunting includes a total 79,001 flags and stretches for 8.9 miles. The previous record for a bunting was 31,119 flags measuring a total 4.7 miles.

Social distancing shoes, anyone?

A Romanian shoemaker is promoting social distancing with his latest innovation: a pair of ‘size 75’ shoes that are each about 2 1/2 feet long.

Grigore Lup, a cobbler from the city of Cluj, said he was inspired to create the long-nosed leather shoes when he saw people failing to follow social distancing guidelines amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Lup’s shoes, which are available online for roughly $115 per pair and are listed as a European size 75. The shoes are designed so two people facing one another would be forced to keep a distance of about five feet.

‘Gaming Grandma’

A 90-year-old Japanese woman known as the “Gaming Grandma” has been awarded a Guinness World Record as the oldest gaming YouTuber.

Hamako Mori, 90, said her interest in video games was piqued about 39 years ago, when she watched some children playing the popular games of the time.

“It looked so much fun and I thought it’s not fair if only children played it,” Mori said. “I thought life would be more fun if I knew how to play it. So I started playing, at first while no one was watching.”

Mori bought her first gaming console, a Cassette Vision, and now, decades later, she plays her PlayStation 4 and shares videos for her more than 150,000 YouTube subscribers. It took her some time to get into more modern games.

“I didn’t touch it until recently because it’s difficult to play. But recent action games are visually spectacular, and they often use actors for characters. So I’m really obsessed with it now,” she said. Mori’ current favourite is Grand Theft Auto 5.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 13th, 2020