The Schoofs Prize for Creativity and The Tong Prototype Prize [background music] 00:02 Speaker: Andrew Mommsen Schoofs Prize for Creativity Winner, 2001 Invention: Automatically Pressurizing Water Gun [split screen: clip of Andrew presented the water gun and receiving an award, portrait of Andrew speaking] Have you ever, you know, had an idea that you thought, "Man, why don't they do it this way?". And I'd say, that's exactly how I did it, you know, and I came out and won $10,000 with that. And it's just -- it doesn't have to be some amazing, complicated item. It can be just a simple thing that you think makes sense. [montage of still photos from the competition] [split screen: portrait of Dean Peercy presenting awards to students and students presenting entries] [logo frame: Tong Prototype Prize and Schoofs Prize for Creativity] 00:34 Speaker: Paul S. Peercy Dean of the College of Engineering This competition -- namely, the Innovation Day, the Schoofs Prize for Creativity, and the Tong Prototype Prize -- give the students the opportunity to apply some of the things that they have learned in class. It also gives the students the opportunity to think much more freely about what engineers do and what engineering is about, as well as what kind of products the public might need. [split screen: students demonstrating entries and portrait of Bachmann] 01:00 Cynthia Bachmann Schoofs/Tong Prize Judge 2001 Vice President of Engineering, Plumbing North America Kohler Co. The message going forward to students is, you know, it doesn't have to be complicated, you don't have to be solving world hunger. There are some very basic problems that have yet to have an elegant solution to them. [split screen: portrait of David Bohn and students demonstrating entries] 01:13 David Bohn Schoofs/Tong Prize Judge, 2001 Project Manager, Research and Development Agilent Technologies The really simple ideas are always the ones that are the most successful. And the water gun example that we had, you know, very simple, you know, most people looked at it and said, "Well, I could have done that." Well, you know, somebody had to do it first. [split screen: clip of Matt presenting the Turbo Tap and portrait of Matt speaking] 01:28 Speaker: Matt Younkle Schoofs Prize for Creativity Winner, 1996 Invention: Turbo Tap Schoofs/Tong Prize Judge 1998 The invention came out of just necessity in terms of what I was doing, the type of work that I was doing at this particular company. I thought there had to be a better way, and I think that's the way a lot of inventions happen. [still image of Sorenson with his entry] [split screen: clip of Sorenson presenting the TankMate and portrait of Sorenson speaking] 01:41 Speaker: Chad Sorenson Schoofs Prize for Creativity Winner, 2000 Invention: TankMate Well, my project actually was motivated kind of from the entrepreneurial side, and I also wanted to apply a lot of things that I was learning in the classroom to a real-world setting. I wanted to go through the process of developing a product rather than just studying how to develop a product. [split screen: clip of Mommsen presenting the water gun and portrait of Mommsen speaking] 01:56 Mommsen: I had this idea three years ago, and I guess I was really looking for an opportunity to be able to come out with it, and it was terrific the way they walked us through the process, the whole patenting process, the whole manufacturing process, and what we should be looking for in our invention. [full frame video of people standing in line at the UW-Madison Memorial Union Terrace] [split screen: clip of Younkle presenting the water gun and portrait of Younkle speaking] [full frame video of Younkle] 02:13 Younkle: I was standing in line at the terrace, and there was a long line, it was a very hot summer night, and everyone around me was getting very frustrated waiting, waiting for their beer, as people do on the terrace. And, at that point, I decided, hey, this is a problem that can be solved, that there should be a better way to do it. [full frame still image of slide describing the TurboTap by Robert Meyers and Matt Younkle] Now, I didn't come up with the idea right then and there, in terms of how to do it. It was more of an idea for an idea, and so the Schoofs contest is all about taking that idea for an idea and hashing it out into an idea and then furthermore into a prototype or a product. [split screen: portrait of Dean Peercy and students demonstrating entries] 02:48 Peercy: I think you don't really know if your idea is going to make a product until you build it. And when you start building a prototype you'll find out what parts of the idea really work well, what parts might have looked good on paper but are maybe difficult to manufacture, or maybe are not user friendly, or maybe need a little bit of modification if they're going to be a top-notch product. 03:10 Dorene Kent Schoofs Prize Fourth Place Winner, 1999 Invention: Hollow Shoe Heel for Personal Items To get my inventions ready for the competition, I had to build prototypes and write a patent application, or a pseudo patent application, and develop a presentation to explain it to everyone else. 03:24 Sorenson: I have a lab book that most people can't believe. And, you know, if I wasn't to develop this product or ever turn into a business, I can walk in any job interview, open up that lab book, and say, "This is what I did, this is my capabilities." [split screen: portrait of Heinzer and a clip of Heinzer presenting his entry] [split screen: portrait of Heinzer and a still image of a slide from his presentation] 03:39 Christoph Heinzer Schoofs Prize Contestant, 2001 Inventions: Brakes for a Bicycle Trailer and Velocity Actuated Front Spoiler The competition helped me to actually follow through on some of the ideas I have. Usually, I think of something and then later I think of something else, and I never really act on it, and the competition gave me the opportunity to actually go through with something a little further than just what I think about. [full frame of student [split screen: clip of student presentations and a portrait of Bachmann] 03:57 Bachmann: If I were to see anybody who's been an active part of a program like this, that's somebody I'm probably immediately going to at least talk to, if not go further in the interview process, because it shows self-initiative, it shows confidence in oneself, in a sense. [split screen: clip of student presentations and a portrait of Kelsey] 04:13 Todd Kelsey Schoofs/Tong Prize Judge, 2001 Director of Operations Plexus Technology Group I mean, the thing we are really looking for, in an employee, is someone who is creative, who's smart, and who's really self-motivated and shows initiative, and I think people that have been in this competition are displaying all three of those in great abundance, so that makes them very attractive future employees. [split screen: portrait of Bohn and a clip of student presentations] 04:30 Bohn: Definitely, when you start interviewing, push the fact that you were in this competition during the interview. It is a big deal. It's bigger than your GPA. [full screen of Younkle] 04:40 Younkle: The direct benefit -- I was interviewing with Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, and the managing director that was interviewing me sat down and said, you know, "Tell me something you're very proud of," and he said, "but the way I want you to do it is explain to me -- explain it like if it were in the headline of the USA Today, for instance." And I had my Schoofs packet, and I opened it up and said [split screen: USA today page and portrait of Younkle] "Well, here it is," and it was a headline in the USA Today. So, he was blown away by that. So, needless to say, I received an offer from Andersen Consulting. [series of still photos, Sorenson] 05:14 Sorenson: This forced me to kind of get out of my shell, develop the product, and the Schoofs competition came and went, but now I'm sitting with a product that, you know, looks like it has some pretty good promise. I would say I probably learned more in the Schoofs competition than I did in any class. [split screen: clip of student presentations and a portrait of Kelsey] 05:30 Kelsey: Well, I think one of the things you really learn from this is the ability to be creative, to use your mind. I think it's very easy for engineers and engineering students to get into the rut of just regurgitating information that they've learned in class. And this really gives you the opportunity to look at a problem and creatively try to solve a problem, which is something that goes above and beyond the classroom experience. [series of full frame clips, Sorenson] [split screen: clip of student presentations, slides by Younkle and Meyers, and a portrait of Younkle] 05:53 Younkle: If you truly put forth a lot of effort in this competition, you'll come away with a great understanding of business, which is something that engineering classes don't necessarily teach you -- and not just business in the academic sense, but business in the real-world sense -- what it takes to turn ideas into technologies into products and take those to the marketplace. [split screen: portrait of Peercy and clip of student presentations] 06:22 Peercy: I would like to encourage more students to participate in this competition, to come up with the concepts for new products, to develop prototypes, because if you look in the marketplace today, most of the products that you see were not there 10 years ago. So the future is building new ideas and new products based on new ideas. [split screen: clip of Kent's presentations and portrait of Kent] 06:37 Kent: I think it's a great opportunity for all students because it doesn't cost anything, it takes a lot of time, but it's a good experience, and the benefits outweigh the time put into the competition, and there's excellent cash prizes, wonderful door prizes, and it's fun! 06:57 Bachmann: I think your employability, your personal enrichment, all benefits from an experience like this. Go for it. [background music rises] [montage of still photos from the competition] [logo frame: Tong Prototype Prize and Schoofs Prize for Creativity] 07:17 Thanks to College of Engineering alumni Richard Schoofs and Peter Tong and the Tong Family Foundation for their generous sponsorship of these competitions. For More Information: www.engr.wisc.edu/students/brainstorm www.engr.wisc.edu/tongprize Copyright 2007 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Some clips from WKOW and WISC-TV.