NORTH CANTON, Ohio,
Sept. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/
-- The Collegiate Inventors Competition®, an annual
competition that rewards innovations, discoveries and research by
college and university students and their faculty advisers,
announced today its 2019 finalists.
This year's finalists and their inventions provide a glimpse
into the future of American innovation and emerging technological
trends — from alternative energy to safer aerial transport. Through
their research, these students have harnessed their "inner
inventor" to make working prototypes that can positively change our
world.
Each year, individuals representing a broad cross-section of
technological fields serve as first-round judges, evaluating
entries based on originality of the idea, process, level of student
initiative, and potential value and usefulness to society. The
finalists will travel to Alexandria,
Virginia, to present their inventions to an esteemed panel
of final-round judges composed of the most influential inventors
and invention experts in the nation — National Inventors Hall of
Fame® Inductees and United States Patent and
Trademark Office (USPTO) officials.
Competition finalists will showcase their inventions and
interact with thousands of attendees at the Collegiate Inventors
Competition Expo. The expo is free and open to all in the
community, and it will be held on Wednesday,
Oct. 30 at 11 a.m. in the
USPTO Madison Building, Upper Atrium. A private Awards Ceremony
will take place later that day in Alexandria.
Established in 1990, the Collegiate Inventors Competition is a
program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and is sponsored by
the USPTO, Arrow Electronics (People's Choice Award), Merck,
Hologic and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich
& Rosati.
Follow the National Inventors Hall of Fame on Facebook,
Twitter and Instagram for live updates, exclusive
interviews with finalists and winners, and additional
information.
UNDERGRADUATE FINALISTS
Compressor-Turbine Fusion, Oklahoma State
University
Team Member: Andrew J. Williamson; Adviser: Khaled A.
Sallam
A Dynamic Approach to Power: The future of heating and
cooling will be determined by our ability to increase efficiency,
minimize costs and widely adopt green energy alternatives.
Compressor-Turbine Fusion has the potential to achieve each of
these goals. Directly integrating a turbine into a compressor
within a single device, Compressor-Turbine Fusion increases the
efficiency of thermodynamic cycles and power equipment, decreases
the production of greenhouse gases and can make alternative energy
more competitive with traditional power sources.
Dual Monitoring Telemedicine Solution for Diabetic Foot
Ulcer, Columbia University
Team Members: Nicole Boyd, Michelle
Feely, Aaron Maccabee,
Xin Xiong; Adviser: Aaron
Kyle
Empowering Patients to Achieve Early Detection: Among
the 30.3 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes, 20% develop
diabetic foot ulcers. If not detected early and treated properly,
these ulcers can lead to amputation, a scenario that can often be
life-threatening. Dual Monitoring Telemedicine Solution for
Diabetic Foot Ulcer allows patients to monitor for ulcers at home
and electronically send information to their doctors. This product
is the first to detect symptoms of ulcers with both digital images
and algorithms.
PE-IVT (Positively Engaged, Infinitely Variable Transmission
Using Split Helical Gears), University of
Nebraska–Lincoln
Team Member: Ethan R. Brush; Adviser: Carl Nelson
Driving Efficiency Forward: As demand for electric
vehicles rises, so does the need for manufacturers to identify a
more suitable transmission. The Positively Engaged, Infinitely
Variable Transmission (PE-IVT) represents a new class of
transmission that combines the torque of gear-based transmissions
with the efficiency of continuously variable transmissions. The
PE-IVT operates at 88 to 98% efficiency across all gear ratios, and
it could disrupt existing technologies and reduce energy losses
across a range of applications and industries.
PeritoneX, Johns Hopkins University
Team
Members: Tejasvi Desai, Sarah Lee, Eugene
Oh, James Qin; Adviser:
Elizabeth Logsdon
Advancing the Safety of Dialysis: End-stage renal
disease can be fatal, and with the limited availability of kidney
transplants, hundreds of thousands of people require renal
replacement therapy to survive. Peritoneal dialysis (PD), a
convenient, at-home form of this therapy, carries a high risk of
infection. To reduce this risk, the PeritoneX is designed to
disinfect PD systems. This syringe-based mechanism can improve
lives by minimizing the potential for infection without increasing
the time or dexterity required to perform PD.
SecURO, Georgia Institute of Technology
Team
Members: Jared Brown, Bailey Eaton, Rachel
Mann; Adviser: James Rains
Automatic Stitching, Faster Recovery: Prostate cancer
affects one in nine men in the United
States. When the prostate must be removed, poor visibility
and restricted maneuverability can lead to human error and
complications including life-threatening infections. Designed to
make this procedure safer, SecURO is a single-use, automatic
circular stitching device that places the stitches with the pull of
a trigger, eliminating problems associated with hand-stitching.
Patients can expect faster recovery times and fewer complications
when SecURO is used.
GRADUATE FINALISTS
Cubic LEDs, University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign
Team Member: Dicky Liu;
Adviser: Can Bayram
A Brighter, Greener Future: LEDs are transforming the
lighting industry, but widespread adoption of solid-state lighting
is hindered by high upfront costs and green LEDs' inefficiencies.
For brighter, more efficient, more affordable full-spectrum
phosphor-free lighting, Cubic LEDs are created on industry-standard
silicon substrates nano-patterned with U-shaped grooves to
facilitate the growth of pure, defect-free cubic phase gallium
nitride. Cubic LEDs are cheaper, more efficient, brighter, produce
less heat than conventional lights and LEDs, and can reduce energy
consumption and greenhouse gas emission globally.
EasyWhip, University of
Tennessee, Knoxville
Team Member: Lia Winter; Adviser: Lynn Youngs
Surgical Precision: As many as 20% of all orthopedic
reconstruction surgeries fail, leading to about 200,000 revision
surgeries in the United States
each year. To give surgeons more control over the process of
stitching grafts, the EasyWhip™ double-loop stitching apparatus is
the first to leverage removable, connected needle portions,
resulting in a new whip stitching method that improves graft
accuracy, reduces the need for costly revision surgeries and
provides better overall outcomes for patients.
Infinite Cooling, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Team Members: Maher Damak, Karim
Khalil; Adviser: Kripa Varanasi
Recycling an Essential Resource: Freshwater sources
are in great demand as regions fall into drought. Because 39% of
all freshwater withdrawals in the United
States are attributed to power plants, Infinite Cooling can
ionize and collect water from power plants' cooling towers so it
may be reused as industrial and drinking water. If this invention
was used in all power plants across the country, it could save as
much as 200 billion gallons of water per year.
Nanodropper, University of Washington
Team
Members: Mackenzie Andrews,
Allisa J. Song (Mayo Clinic Alix
School of Medicine), Jennifer
Steger; Adviser: Raghu Mudumbai
Small Drops, Big Vision: For millions of people with
eye conditions such as glaucoma, the unregulated size of
eyedropper tip openings poses significant
problems. Oversized drops dispensed from these
bottles result in wasted medication, leading many patients to
run out before their insurance will cover a refill — and each
missed dose can contribute to vision loss. Nanodropper is a
universal adapter for eyedrop medication bottles that creates
smaller and more efficacious droplets to reduce waste, decreases
per-dose costs, and ultimately increases access to expensive,
essential medications.
SALUS (Stabilizing Aerial Loads Utility System),
Stanford University
Team Members: Joshua Barnett, Tony
Chen, Mahdi Al-Husseini (Georgia
Institute of Technology); Advisers: Shivan Amin, Rocco
Giustino, Marty Jacobson,
Thomas J. Leppert V
Stability on the Rise: When helicopters hoist
patients, soldiers or cargo, turbulent winds created by the blades
can cause the people or objects lifted from the ground to spin,
leading to serious damage or even death. SALUS (Stabilizing Aerial
Loads Utility System) is an electromechanical stabilization system
that uses flywheel technology for safer aerial transport. This
innovative device can stabilize a hoisted load in seconds,
significantly reducing the time needed to perform a potentially
life-saving aerial hoist.
About the Collegiate Inventors Competition
The Collegiate Inventors Competition encourages and drives
innovation and entrepreneurship at the collegiate level. A program
of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, this competition recognizes
and rewards the research, innovations and discoveries by college
students and their advisers for projects leading to inventions that
have the potential of receiving patent protection. Introduced in
1990, the competition has awarded more than $1 million to students for their innovative work
and scientific achievement through the help of its sponsors. For
more information, visit invent.org/events/cic-event.
CONTACT:
Ken Torisky
National Inventors Hall of Fame
ktorisky@invent.org
234-901-6085
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