MALMESBURY-based inventor Tom Lawton has landed a starring role in an X Factor-style children’s show for young designers.

Tom, who came up with a camera that can take a 360 degree photograph and a wind powered light called a Firewinder, is acting as a judge and mentor for youngsters appearing on My Genius Idea.

“It has been a fabulous experience,” he said. “I got involved because I thought it was very worthwhile.”

The producers approached him after talking to Trevor Baylis, the man who invented the wind up radio.

They had met a decade before, when Tom had asked him to open his design degree show.

“He is like the people’s inventor.”

The young inventors, who will be whittled down to two for the final in eight weeks’ time, were an impressive bunch of nine to 12-year-olds.

“They came on with such an inspiring collection of ideas. Some really profound things,” he said The first show alone featured a girl who had an idea for a folding ramp that could be fitted onto a wheelchair and a boy who had thought up a washing line that could tell when the washing was dry.

“In almost every case they were thinking about others,” said Tom. “They were very aware of the environment and of community. They were thinking of the bigger picture.”

“I found it very, very difficult to decide between them in almost every case, because you are judging ideas, not final solutions.

“A lot of it is about the child’s ability to take on the advice of the experts and to learn.”

The BBC1 show airs on Tuesdays at 4pm.