What participants say …

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,
$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

Faucet Filter

Faucet Filter: An affordable and sustainable valve for water conservation efforts around the world.

Faucet Filter (large image)

"I think it was a much more gratifying experience to actually have something in the physical world and it also helps a lot to convince people when there is a product that they can physically touch. It's very nice to see that something you came up with in your mind actually works when you translate it to the physical world. It also has a group effect. When we started out we were all working in different directions, but in the middle of the semester we started meeting together down in the machine shop to machine parts. Building the prototype has a unifying and organizing effect on the team and it gives the group incentive to keep working."
— Valerie Bauza

Innovators: Paul Fraser, Valerie Bauza, Ryu Suzuki, Niklas Schmidt and Katharine Mulligan