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| Home : Volume 31 : Spring 2005 : | |
| Innovation Days alumni sponsor two new awards | |
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The Sorenson Design Notebook Award honors the best example of the competition's required ideas documentation. This is one of the inventor's most important tools, crucial to the development of an invention and documentation for intellectual property purposes.
The 2005 Sorenson Award was presented to Lynn Daul for her work in documenting the "Baseboard Booster" team's innovations. The invention is a collapsing stool that fits in the space behind the baseboard of a cabinet. The "Baseboard Booster" also earned a $7,000, second-place Schoofs Prize award.
Chad Sorenson's TankMate, a microcontroller-based device designed to aid farmers in applying anhydrous-ammonia to fields, won the first-place $10,000 prize in the 2000 Schoofs Prize for Creativity. He also won first place in the 2001 Tong Prototype Prize competition along with second place in the G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition. He founded a company (Fluent Systems) based on his technology and later sold the business to Raven Industries, Inc. of Sioux Falls, South Dakota for more than $1 million.
Innovation Days competitions meant a great deal to Sorenson, so he decided to give something back to the College of Engineering in order to encourage other young entrepreneurs to develop their skills. Sorenson knows the value of a clean and clear "ideas notebook" that keeps an accurate record of an invention's progress. His "TankMate" design notebook is generally regarded as one of the best ever submitted for the Schoofs Prize for Creativity.
The Younkle Best Presentation Award honors creativity and effectiveness in one of the most crucial and competitive aspects of Innovation Days: the presentation to the judges. This is where a team must communicate the invention's unique features and potential market — all in only 10 minutes. It demands knowledge and preparation — but also creativity and marketing flair.
The 2005 Younkle award went to Mark Osbeck, Scott Haman, Kyle Larson and Anders Brown for best communicating the unique features and potential market of their innovation, the PortagePro. The team's device is designed to allow travelers on a portage to transfer the load of the canoe to most backpacks. Portage Pro also won the $1,250 second-place Tong Prototype Prize award and a fourth-place $1,000 Schoofs Prize award.
Matthew Younkle is a UW-Madison graduate in electrical and computer engineering and computer science. He first won a prize in the Schoofs competition in 1995 for an ultrasonic measuring system he developed with partner Mickey Ellis. In 1996, with partner Robert Meyers, Younkle's Turbo Tap system for quickly dispensing beverages won the $10,000 first-prize award. Younkle won a prototype prize in 1997 for a system of photodiodes that improved the making of toast. In 2002 and every year since, he has returned to the Schoofs/Tong Prize competitions as a judge. Since graduating, Younkle has continued work as an entrepreneur, creating, funding and selling innovations. He continues to develop and market the Turbo Tap system. Younkle says the skills and knowledge he gained in the Innovation Days competitions have been critical to his career. Clearly, he knows something about making an outstanding innovation presentation.
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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