Home : Volume 23 : Spring 1997 :
COE students rack up honors at third annual invention contest

Richard Schoofs (second from left) visits with the team of inventors who created the Fly-Bye Rack. The invention won second prize. The rack simplifies the loading of a bicycle onto the roof of a car. (37K JPG) Third place winners Bill Jacobson (left) and Amanda Kohout (right) with contest sponsor Richard Schoofs, holding a prototype of Alarm Twin. The device sounds an alarm when separated from its transmitter. (35K JPG) Richard Schoofs (left) and fourth place $1,000 winner Matt Younkle (right) with Younkle's photodiode-controlled toasting system. The device uses an array of photodiodes to gauge the length of toasting time needed to achieve a desired color of toast. (40K JPG) COE student Peter Parker shows his invention "Tire Leads" to Graduate School Dean and Schoofs Prize for Creativity judge Virginia Hinshaw. Tire Leads clear snow, water or slush from the path of each tire. Parker won an Aschenbrenner Prototype Award. (34K JPG)

If necessity is the mother of invention, irritation must be its governess. Many of the inventions in the College of Engineering's third annual invention contest The Schoofs Prize for Creativity were born of frustration with pet peeves.

Theodore Van Deburg's "Urilet" is a good example. His combination toilet and urinal won him the $10,000 first prize. It was frustration with cleaning the bathroom in his apartment that led him to design "Urilet" just before working as an intern with Kohler Company.

"I was cleaning the toilet in my apartment," Van Deburg told the judges. "There is that spot behind the seat between the toilet and tank that is gross and hard to clean. I just thought there had to be a better way to do it."

Brainstorm awards cash prizes to the undergraduates whose inventions are judged most creative, novel, innovative, patentable and likely to succeed in the marketplace. The contest is sponsored by Richard J. Schoofs (BSChE '53), chairman of Schoofs Incorporated.

"BRAINSTORM'S" First place $10,000 winner Theodore Van Deburg displays his prototype of "Urilet"... a combination toilet and urinal. The idea behind the invention is that both toilet and urinal can fit in half the space. (23K JPG)

By attending a series of free seminars, contestants learn how to develop their ideas, patent their devices or processes, and develop business plans. On Edison Day, the annual celebration of Thomas Edison's birthday, the inventors present their projects to a panel of industry and university professionals. This year's Edison Day observance marked the 150th anniversary of the great inventor's birth. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering commemorated the event by firing up the State Historical Society of Wisconsin's Edison generator. There was also a lecture by Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor and inventor Deepakraj M. Divan titled "From College Professor to the School of Hard Knocks: Taking University Technology into the Business World." (Divan has been on leave from the university to start a technology based business called Soft Switching Technologies.)

This year's judges included John Hardiman, licensing agent for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Virginia Hinshaw, dean of the Graduate School, Steven Price, director of University-Industry Relations, Bob Drane, vice president of new product development and TQM at Oscar Mayer, and entrepreneur Tom Aschenbrenner. Judges grilled students on all aspects of their inventions. Students had to be prepared to defend technical aspects, marketing plans and patentability as well.

Second place $7,000 winners Jonathan Furniss, Adam Ward, Joseph Gasser, Branden Reid and Timothy Kippley teamed up to design the Fly-Bye Rack. The rack simplifies loading bicycles onto the roof of a vehicle. Furniss says it was frustration with loading cumbersome bicycles onto the roof of a car that led to the design. The rack has pivoting arms that lower to the side of the vehicle in order to allow one person to secure a bike without injury to either himself or to the vehicle.

Mark O'Neal (sitting) and Mohamed Ouali demonstrate their "Water Recliner". Their invention incorporates heat and vibration into water-filled cushions in the chair. (36K JPG)

Third place $4,000 winners Bill Jacobson, Amanda Kohout and Robert Sundling designed a system for keeping track of personal belongings or small children. Alarm Twin consists of an inexpensive, credit-card-sized receiver and transmitter pair. The transmitter is kept on the person and the receiver on the belongings or child. If the two are separated by a user-specified distance, an alarm sounds.

Three inventions tied for fourth place $1,000 prizes. They are as follows:

• The Photodiode-controlled Toasting System by Matt Younkle uses an array of photodiodes to gauge the length of toasting time needed to achieve the desired color of toast.

• Brian Dondlinger's Variable Length Intake Manifold is a device for modifying and improving the delivery of the air/fuel mixture to the combustion chamber of the cylinders in an internal combustion engine. The length of the manifold is controlled by an electro-mechanical positioner motor which receives signals from the engine management computer.

• Automaton Stew by Nate Gemelke also won a fourth prize ribbon. His object-oriented programming language is designed to facilitate the construction of event-driven applications through the use of autonomous objects, capable of implicit event-trapping and automatic behavior triggering.

New this year were two "Best Prototype Awards" sponsored by Brainstorm judge Tom Aschenbrenner. Those awards went to Kristofer Dressler and Matt Younkle for their Thermoelectric-based Air Conditioning System. The automotive climate-control system uses an array of thermoelectric cooling pads attached to heat sinks to cool air circulated by electric fans. The other prototype award went to Peter Parker for his Tire Leads. The design includes metal brushes affixed to vehicle wheels in such a way as to remove snow and water from the path of each tire.

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Date last modified: Wednesday, 09-Apr-1997 12:00:00 CDT

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