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What participants say …

Hoopla Rack

Hoopla Rack,
third place and $4,000,
2008 Schoofs Prize for Creativity;
third place and $700,
Tong Prototype Prize;
and Younkle Best Presentation Award

“Through the whole process, I actually began to see my design turn into a prototype, and now my prototype might actually become a patented reality. By the end, I was so happy that I had chosen to take a chance on myself and do something that brought my engineering and hooping life together.”

—Danielle McIntosh

Pen Smart

Pen Smart,
$1,000 Judges’ Award for Special Merit,
2008 Schoofs Prize for Creativity

“I thought of this product two years ago—I wrote it down and kind of forgot about it for awhile. And I realized that if I didn’t do it, I’d always regret it, so I just decided to pursue it. The competition is a great outlet for anyone interested in innovation and development. The experience gives you the tools to develop the idea and the confidence to continue.”

—Daniel Gartenberg

Innovators in the news …
articles about past competitors

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For more information, email innovation@engr.wisc.edu.

Register Now!

This student invention competition is open to all UW-Madison undergraduate students. Please join us! Find out how to develop your devices or processes and create a prototype. You can also learn about intellectual property rights to protect your ideas.

The INNOVATION DAYS ceremony is free and open to the public.

Schoofs Prize for Creativity

First Prize: $10,000
Second Prize: $7,000
Third Prize: $4,000
Fourth Prize: $1,000

Tong Prototype Prize

First Prize: $2,500
Second Prize: $1,250
Third Prize: $700

Younkle Best Presentation Award: $1,000
Sorenson Design Notebook Award: $1,000

Registration for the 2009 competition is OPEN.

  • Registration for the 2008 competition closes Friday, Oct. 10, 2008.
  • Ideafests: September 2008
  • Final entry submission deadline: Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 4:30 p.m., 429 Wendt Library
  • Competition: Thursday, Feb. 12, 8 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and Friday , Feb. 13, 2009, 8 a.m. to noon, if an additional day is necessary.

REGISTRATION FOR THE 2009 COMPETITION IS OPEN AND CLOSES OCT. 10, 2008. FILL OUT THE APPLICATION FORM.


Frequently Asked Questions

Deadlines, team members, class projects, prototypes, and more.

Contest Rules

Please consult the contest rules for important instructions.

Resources

These reports have been reprinted by permission of the authors for use by competition participants:

RELATED LINKS

Tong Prototype Prize

Tong Biomedical Engineering Design Awards

G. Steven Burrill Technology Business Plan Competition

Complete List of 2007 Winners


CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2008 PARTICIPANTS

2008 Prize Winners:
Complete list

Entrants

Accessible Incontinence Device, a catheterized system to sense bladder pressure and control urine flow to prevent incontinence (Arin Ellingson, Marty Grasse, Ben Schoepke, Jon Sass and Dave Schurter).
Adaptive Sailing Seat, a boat-mounted seat that enables amputees, paraplegics or quadriplegics to participate in sailing activities (Kyle Satula, Pat Severson, Carl Vogt, Kevin Jimenez and Meg Reinbold).
Bug Whapper, a tractor-towed farming tool that removes beetles from potato plants (James Bridwell, Rebecca Hager, Alan Klein, Mike Kolden and Rachel Spartz).
Hoopla Rack, a system for transporting hula hoops via bicycle (Danielle McIntosh).
Ice Pod, a portable device to measure ice thickness on a body of water so the user can determine safety (Matt Hemke, Dustin Jepperson, Matt Orton, Bala Shanmugham and Alyssa Skulborstad).
Lace Master, a machine that enables an injured or disabled person to tie their shoes tightly with just one hand (Ross Borchardt, Leah Holmes, Jacob Mikulsky, Dave Moseler and Mike Vioski).
Laptop Case-to-Desk, a laptop case that can expand into a sturdy desk up to 46 inches in height (Scott Hollander, Tyler Cramer and Kenny Kearney).
Pen Smart, an ergonomic writing utensil that includes multiple writing tips, such as ball-point and felt-tip (Daniel Gartenberg).
Portable Refrigerated Beverage Dispenser, a lightweight, self-contained unit for transporting, cooling and dispensing a keg (Kyle Hanson).
Runway Rescuer, a device to remove aircraft with flat tires from the runway (Becky Broberg, Zach Courter, Dan Kuehn, Peter Shafe and Rob Wilson).
SafeSled, an inflatable sled for evacuating people with physical disabilities during an aircraft emergency (Matthew Kuhns, Elliot Locke, Firdaus Nandoliya and Mike Wald).
Vertical Dish Rack, a space-saving vertical unit for air-drying and storing dinnerware and flatware (Victor Moy, David Moya and Chor Vang).
Whip-Up Tip-Up, a wind-powered device that prevents an ice-fishing hole from refreezing and alerts anglers when a fish is caught (Max Salick, Ryley Karl, Annie Ruel, Douglas Jensen and Steven Faulkner).
Zipper Lock, a lock that prevents a single-slide zipper from opening for theft determent (Victor Moy, David Moya and Chor Vang).

Past Winners

20081st Prize — Accessible Incontinence Device
20071st Prize — Ladder Cat
20061st Prize — Concentrating Solar Collector for Direct Vapor Generation, Water Heating and Electricity Generation
20051st Prize — Firesite
20041st Prize — Ice Net X
20031st Prize — Visual Flow Regime Detection System
20021st Prize — Check-Meter Accelerometer
20011st Prize — Automatically Pressurizing Water Gun
20001st Prize — TankMate
19991st Prize — Concentrating Spectrum-Splitting Solar Photovoltaic System
19981st Prize — Turbo Mule
19971st Prize — Urilet
19961st Prize — Turbo Tap
19951st Prize — Collapsible land yacht/iceboat



The college thanks Richard Schoofs (BSChE `53), chairman of Schoofs Inc., for his creativity and generosity in sponsoring the annual Schoofs Prize for Creativity. The Tong Prize is made possible by a generous gift from the Tong Family Foundation (UW-Madison alumni Peter and Janet Tong).
An activity of the UW-Technology Enterprise Cooperative.
Most browsers can open the PDF file on this page, but if you need a free PDF viewer, please visit the Adobe Reader website. To listen to the file, use View > Read Out Loud in Acrobat Reader. Copyright 2008 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
Content by innovation@engr.wisc.edu

Date last modified: Tuesday, 11-Mar-2008 14:14:29 CDT
Date created: 30-Sep-1998