This past Monday, December 4th, the Francis College of Engineering hosted the Prototyping College-based Competition is the SAAB ETIC, Perry Atrium from 4PM-8:30PM. Faculty, students, and outside spectators were welcomed to view the students prototypes, and vote on their favorites as well!

During the spectating, a panel of preliminary judges including, Steve Rogers, Mark Dyment, Mike Ryder, and Sarah Washburn, went around and listened to a three-minute pitch on each teams prototype. After, they deliberated and picked their top four favorites. These teams included Handy Bandages, Pillzio, Pic n’ Paint, and CareerHawk. Each team then went in front of the panel of judges, including including Stephen McCarthy, Cindy Conde, Chad LaFrance, and Bhupen Shah, and pitched a ten-minute long presentation on their product. The presentation was followed by questions from the judges, and then the decisions were made on who wins!

The peoples choice, or fan favorite $250 prize went to Arsalan Khalid, PhD Civil and Environmental Engineering, of Team Water Challenge, which aims to develop an effective lead removal device for water distribution system.

Third place with a prize of $500 was awarded to Pic N’ Paint, a device that accurately reproduces any color (input through a camera) using several CNC axis to dispense the correct ratios of cyan, magenta, yellow and black paint into a single container. Team members included Romer Sullivan, Mechanical Engineering, Freshman; Joshua O’Neil, Mechanical Engineering, Freshman; Kemper Hopwood, Mechanical Engineering, Freshman; Mathew Minichiello, Mechanical Engineering, Freshman; Timoth Marcotte, Mechanical Engineering, Sophomore.

Second place with a prize of $750 went to Pillzio, which leverages the power of Amazon’s Alexa Voice Assistant, and allows you to interact with your medications like never before. Team members included Jooseppi Luna, Mechanical Engineering, Junior; Dave Machado, Computer Science, Senior; Darrien Glasser, Computer Science, Senior; Joshua Hassler, Computer Science, Junior.

First Place Graduate Winners with a prize of $1000 went to CareerHawk, which makes it easier for students to find a job on campus and helps professors find student assistants easier. Team members included Jingchuan Zhou, MS Computer Science; Lina Wu, MS Computer Engineering; Ruizhe Du, BSE Electrical Engineering, Senior; Yongdae Kwon, BBA Business Administration, Senior.

Finally, first place over all with a prize of $1000 was given to Handy Bandages, which is an inexpensive ‘sock’ that goes over the arm or leg while the patient is waiting for care. This helps to shield the wound from airborne pathogens in a hospital waiting room. Team members included Jennifer Schultz, Biomedical Engineering, Freshman; Cameron Albert, Biomedical Engineering, Freshman; Jayden Hairston, Biomedical Engineering, Freshman.

Lastly, the night closed with some networking!

Thank you to all the teams who participated, the judges, the Francis College of Engineering, and all the spectators for coming and making this event a success! We hope to see some of these ideas come through in our $50,000 Idea Challenge this spring!