2012 innovation Competition Award Winners
Spilvenger Team
A seat-belt safety system utilizing viscoelastic polymer beads suspended in a liquid matrix was the winning innovative technology in a student competition held on Thursday, May 3, 2012 by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Team Viscolife, composed of Liane Moreau (team leader, BS '12 MSE), Andrew Arnold (BS '12 MSE), Anthony Sullivan (BS '12 MSE), and Eric Moreau (BA '14 Economics), won the $11,250 1st Prize for their design to reduce seat-belt related injuries and deaths by limiting the amount of force transmitted from the seat-belt to the occupant during a collision.
The team was mentored by Jan Pajerski (BS '05 MAE) of KensaGroup.
The Viscolife team created a dampener that increases the stopping distance of the body, thereby reducing the maximum force felt by the occupant by up to 20 percent.
Enabled through alumni and corporate sponsors, the Advanced Materials Enabled Innovation Competition debuted in 2010 and is open to any student team that includes two students (grad or undergrad) from MSE. The competition challenges teams to design or prototype a technology based on advanced materials and to demonstrate that this technology can be successful in a commercial product/process or as a small business innovation research proposal.
Four finalist teams competed after submission of initial proposals in December 2011. Each team was linked to mentors with relevant industrial experience. The teams received $1000 to use for testing and prototyping. The teams had 30 minutes to present their technology and business plan to a panel of three judges, all of whom had managed engineering innovations toward commercial manufacturing.
The $6,000 2nd Prize was awarded to Team Spilvenger, which proposed a fuel-cell powered robot for eliminating oil spills.
Team Luminix Technologies received the $3,000 3rd Prize for their development of light-activated sutures with self-tightening capabilities.
Team cUVerPlus won the $3000 Director's Design Prize for a solar-powered case to charge cell phone batteries.
More information on the competition and videos of the presentations are available at:
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