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| Home : Volume 31 : Spring 2005 : | |
| FireSite and RoboMouse tackle top awards at Innovation Days 2005 | |
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The FireSite, a transmitter/receiver system designed to guide firefighters out of smoke-filled buildings, took the $10,000 top prize in the 2005 Schoofs Prize for Creativity, UW-Madison's annual innovation competition hosted by the College of Engineering. COE students Nick O'Brien, Chandler Nault and Mitch Nick developed their innovation in consultation with the Madison Fire Department. "It really helped to work with the fire department," says Mitch Nick. "We were able to more clearly see the problem and figure out what kind of product would work best for them."
The FireSite system employs triangulation to help firefighters retrace their path. Two modules are placed outside the burning building. Firefighters carry additional modules on their belts and drop them at key locations, such as doorways and stairs, as they move through the structure. The two units outside the building work with any one of the modules in the building to create the triangle. On the firefighter's back is a transmitter, receiver and processor that reports his or her location and the location of the modules to a display built into the facemask.
Nick, Nault and O'Brien plan to use their winnings to further develop the invention.
RoboMouse, a fishing lure that replicates the appearance and movements of a live animal in the water, won Sean McHone the $2,500 first-place Tong Prototype Prize and a $4,000 third-place Schoofs Prize award. McHone's inspiration to invent the RoboMouse was born of a desire to catch the "big fish," but not the kind that swims. "I came up with the design because I wanted to win the contest. I looked at being in the contest as a big resumé-builder and while I was taking summer courses I was deciding what I wanted my entry to be," says McHone. "I planned to design it over the summer and built it fall semester."
McHone, who worked for seven years in structural design and drafting, was careful to point out that his fully functional prototype was designed as a prototype and not for manufacture.
"The design is based on what I knew I could do. For manufacturing it wouldn't be assembled in nearly the same way. When it's redesigned for mass production the end result will be the same but the parts will be very different," he says.
Winners of the 2005 competition were chosen from a field of 17 entries exhibited and displayed during Innovation Days, held Feb. 10 and 11. Both the Schoofs Prize for Creativity and Tong Prototype Award give cash prizes to those whose ideas are judged most creative, novel, innovative and likely to succeed in the marketplace.
Each student or team presented their invention to a panel of judges who ask a series of questions similar to those investors might ask. This year's judges included Emeritus Professor and Dean John G. Bollinger; Thomas N. Hendrickson, CPAC chairman of the board, CEO and president; Laura Lukaczyk, founder and managing general partner of Avansis Ventures, LLC; David J. Smukowski, senior director and founder of Boeing Ventures; and Matthew Younkle, inventor and chairman of Y Innovation, LLC, president of Laminar Technologies, LLC, and the developer of the TurboTap line of beer-dispensing products.
The competitions are sponsored by the UW Technology Enterprise Cooperative. The Schoofs Prize is funded by Richard J. Schoofs, who received a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering in 1953 from UW-Madison. The Tong Prototype Prizes and grants are sponsored by the Tong Family Foundation, including COE alumnus Peter P. Tong, who received his master of science degree in electrical and computer engineering in 1965.
The full list of winners is as follows:
Content by perspective@engr.wisc.edu
Date last modified: Wednesday, 25-May-2005 10:30:05 CDT
Date created: 25-May-2005
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