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| Home : Volume 31 : Winter 2005 : | |
| Student company has bright future | |
Mike Casper (rear) and Tony Nichol started their company, BriteIce Technologies, after winning $7,000 for their "illuminating" invention in UW-Madison's INNOVATION DAYS competition. |
The university's Motion "W" logo, on ice at the Kohl Center. |
Although Mike Casper earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in May and recently began work as a business associate with ZS Associates, his E-mail "signature" reads "Co-Founder & President, BriteIce Technologies LLC."
Casper and his friend, Tony Nichol (who is now a graduate student at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology), formed the company after their entry, "Ice Light," took second place and $7,000 in the Schoofs Prize for Creativity in February 2004. Part of Innovation Days, the competition challenges students to develop a novel idea or invention and awards prizes to the most creative and likely to succeed.
Their invention is an edge-lighted film that projects logos or advertising through the sheets in ice arenas and can be turned off by flipping a switch. For the competition, the duo's prototype included a small-scale ice sheet through which they projected the BriteIce logo.
But a lot, as Casper and Nichol will say, has happened since then. After their win, they spent all of their spare time working on a larger-scale prototype. With the help of some engineering faculty and Assistant Dean of Pre-Engineering Don Woolston (also a member of the university's Athletic Board), the students showcased the technology to UW-Madison athletic department staff, who invited them to install a logo into the Kohl Center ice.
Their company seemed to be taking off, so Casper and Nichol teamed up with consumer science student Paul Hohag to develop a business plan. They entered it into the university's G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition and won second place and $7,000.
The cash funded additional improvements to the group's design, although not without some effort. "After some unsuccessful attempts at finding a supplier for our application, we finally found a small company called NorLux near Chicago that would listen to our design requirements and build us a light source," says Casper.
The company really cooperated. "We worked with them throughout the summer and even spent two weeks in Chicago working at their facility to finish the design in time for the Kohl Center installation," he says.
The installation was a success, says Casper, and now Badger hockey fans may see a 4-by-4-foot Motion "W" against the boards behind each goal. "Hockey players, arena staff, students and our supplier have commented on the possibilities of our invention as they've seen the red "W" transform the ice surface," he says.
At some point, the three will remove the Ice Lights and work on protecting and perfecting them. "We're still 'patent-pending' and need to work with our supplier to design and produce a better light source," says Casper. "After learning the process of installation and working through some pitfalls, we have a renewed outlook on the possibilities of a brighter, more integrated design."
To that end, Nichol is studying optical engineering with a focus on microfabrication at MIT. "I am using the opportunity to learn some of the current technologies and techniques available to optimize the Ice Light for manufacturability and quality," he says. "Our next design will be at least 10 times brighter than the current prototype and should be ready for production for the 2005-2006 hockey season."
Now the group is developing a website and seeking funding for its next steps via angel investors, contracts and perhaps a partnership with its supplier.
Casper credits the invention and business-plan competitions for jump-starting the group's idea, which Nichol had been kicking around in his head for some time. "The development of BriteIce Technologies over the past eight months has been a journey that has flown by, although we've enjoyed almost every step of the way," he says. "It is still a small step in the places we can go with the idea, but it also wouldn't have had the momentum it did without the Schoofs, Tong and Burrill competitions to get us going."
Content by perspective@engr.wisc.edu
Date last modified: Tuesday, 26-Apr-2005 17:06:42 CDT
Date created: 26-Apr-2005
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