Finalists Named for 2019 Collegiate Inventors Competition

NORTH CANTON, Ohio, Sept. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Collegiate Inventors Competition^®, an annual competition that rewards innovations, discoveries and research by college and university students and their faculty advisers, announced today its 2019 finalists.

This year's finalists and their inventions provide a glimpse into the future of American innovation and emerging technological trends — from alternative energy to safer aerial transport. Through their research, these students have harnessed their "inner inventor" to make working prototypes that can positively change our world.

Each year, individuals representing a broad cross-section of technological fields serve as first-round judges, evaluating entries based on originality of the idea, process, level of student initiative, and potential value and usefulness to society. The finalists will travel to Alexandria, Virginia, to present their inventions to an esteemed panel of final-round judges composed of the most influential inventors and invention experts in the nation — National Inventors Hall of Fame^® Inductees and United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) officials.

Competition finalists will showcase their inventions and interact with thousands of attendees at the Collegiate Inventors Competition Expo. The expo is free and open to all in the community, and it will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. in the USPTO Madison Building, Upper Atrium. A private Awards Ceremony will take place later that day in Alexandria.

Established in 1990, the Collegiate Inventors Competition is a program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and is sponsored by the USPTO, Arrow Electronics (People's Choice Award), Merck, Hologic and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Follow the National Inventors Hall of Fame on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for live updates, exclusive interviews with finalists and winners, and additional information.

UNDERGRADUATE FINALISTS

Compressor-Turbine Fusion, Oklahoma State University 
Team Member: Andrew J. Williamson; Adviser: Khaled A. Sallam 
A Dynamic Approach to Power: The future of heating and cooling will be determined by our ability to increase efficiency, minimize costs and widely adopt green energy alternatives. Compressor-Turbine Fusion has the potential to achieve each of these goals. Directly integrating a turbine into a compressor within a single device, Compressor-Turbine Fusion increases the efficiency of thermodynamic cycles and power equipment, decreases the production of greenhouse gases and can make alternative energy more competitive with traditional power sources.

Dual Monitoring Telemedicine Solution for Diabetic Foot Ulcer, Columbia University 
Team Members: Nicole Boyd, Michelle Feely, Aaron Maccabee, Xin Xiong; Adviser: Aaron Kyle 
Empowering Patients to Achieve Early Detection: Among the 30.3 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes, 20% develop diabetic foot ulcers. If not detected early and treated properly, these ulcers can lead to amputation, a scenario that can often be life-threatening. Dual Monitoring Telemedicine Solution for Diabetic Foot Ulcer allows patients to monitor for ulcers at home and electronically send information to their doctors. This product is the first to detect symptoms of ulcers with both digital images and algorithms.

PE-IVT (Positively Engaged, Infinitely Variable Transmission Using Split Helical Gears), University of Nebraska–Lincoln 
Team Member: Ethan R. Brush; Adviser: Carl Nelson 
Driving Efficiency Forward: As demand for electric vehicles rises, so does the need for manufacturers to identify a more suitable transmission. The Positively Engaged, Infinitely Variable Transmission (PE-IVT) represents a new class of transmission that combines the torque of gear-based transmissions with the efficiency of continuously variable transmissions. The PE-IVT operates at 88 to 98% efficiency across all gear ratios, and it could disrupt existing technologies and reduce energy losses across a range of applications and industries.

PeritoneX, Johns Hopkins University  
Team Members: Tejasvi Desai, Sarah Lee, Eugene Oh, James Qin; Adviser: Elizabeth Logsdon 
Advancing the Safety of Dialysis: End-stage renal disease can be fatal, and with the limited availability of kidney transplants, hundreds of thousands of people require renal replacement therapy to survive. Peritoneal dialysis (PD), a convenient, at-home form of this therapy, carries a high risk of infection. To reduce this risk, the PeritoneX is designed to disinfect PD systems. This syringe-based mechanism can improve lives by minimizing the potential for infection without increasing the time or dexterity required to perform PD.

SecURO, Georgia Institute of Technology 
Team Members: Jared Brown, Bailey Eaton, Rachel Mann; Adviser: James Rains 
Automatic Stitching, Faster Recovery: Prostate cancer affects one in nine men in the United States. When the prostate must be removed, poor visibility and restricted maneuverability can lead to human error and complications including life-threatening infections. Designed to make this procedure safer, SecURO is a single-use, automatic circular stitching device that places the stitches with the pull of a trigger, eliminating problems associated with hand-stitching. Patients can expect faster recovery times and fewer complications when SecURO is used.

GRADUATE FINALISTS

Cubic LEDs, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
Team Member: Dicky Liu; Adviser: Can Bayram 
A Brighter, Greener Future: LEDs are transforming the lighting industry, but widespread adoption of solid-state lighting is hindered by high upfront costs and green LEDs' inefficiencies. For brighter, more efficient, more affordable full-spectrum phosphor-free lighting, Cubic LEDs are created on industry-standard silicon substrates nano-patterned with U-shaped grooves to facilitate the growth of pure, defect-free cubic phase gallium nitride. Cubic LEDs are cheaper, more efficient, brighter, produce less heat than conventional lights and LEDs, and can reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission globally.

EasyWhip, University of Tennessee, Knoxville 
Team Member: Lia Winter; Adviser: Lynn Youngs 
Surgical Precision: As many as 20% of all orthopedic reconstruction surgeries fail, leading to about 200,000 revision surgeries in the United States each year. To give surgeons more control over the process of stitching grafts, the EasyWhip™ double-loop stitching apparatus is the first to leverage removable, connected needle portions, resulting in a new whip stitching method that improves graft accuracy, reduces the need for costly revision surgeries and provides better overall outcomes for patients.

Infinite Cooling, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
Team Members: Maher Damak, Karim Khalil; Adviser: Kripa Varanasi 
Recycling an Essential Resource: Freshwater sources are in great demand as regions fall into drought. Because 39% of all freshwater withdrawals in the United States are attributed to power plants, Infinite Cooling can ionize and collect water from power plants' cooling towers so it may be reused as industrial and drinking water. If this invention was used in all power plants across the country, it could save as much as 200 billion gallons of water per year.

Nanodropper, University of Washington 
Team Members: Mackenzie Andrews, Allisa J. Song (Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine), Jennifer Steger; Adviser: Raghu Mudumbai 
Small Drops, Big Vision: For millions of people with eye conditions such as glaucoma, the unregulated size of eyedropper tip openings poses significant problems. Oversized drops dispensed from these bottles result in wasted medication, leading many patients to run out before their insurance will cover a refill — and each missed dose can contribute to vision loss. Nanodropper is a universal adapter for eyedrop medication bottles that creates smaller and more efficacious droplets to reduce waste, decreases per-dose costs, and ultimately increases access to expensive, essential medications.

SALUS (Stabilizing Aerial Loads Utility System), Stanford University 
Team Members: Joshua Barnett, Tony Chen, Mahdi Al-Husseini (Georgia Institute of Technology); Advisers: Shivan Amin, Rocco Giustino, Marty Jacobson, Thomas J. Leppert V 
Stability on the Rise: When helicopters hoist patients, soldiers or cargo, turbulent winds created by the blades can cause the people or objects lifted from the ground to spin, leading to serious damage or even death. SALUS (Stabilizing Aerial Loads Utility System) is an electromechanical stabilization system that uses flywheel technology for safer aerial transport. This innovative device can stabilize a hoisted load in seconds, significantly reducing the time needed to perform a potentially life-saving aerial hoist.

About the Collegiate Inventors Competition
The Collegiate Inventors Competition encourages and drives innovation and entrepreneurship at the collegiate level. A program of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, this competition recognizes and rewards the research, innovations and discoveries by college students and their advisers for projects leading to inventions that have the potential of receiving patent protection. Introduced in 1990, the competition has awarded more than $1 million to students for their innovative work and scientific achievement through the help of its sponsors. For more information, visit invent.org/events/cic-event.

CONTACT:
Ken Torisky 
National Inventors Hall of Fame 
ktorisky@invent.org 
234-901-6085

SOURCE Collegiate Inventors Competition