By Dianthe Harris
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
The EPICS/VDC team won 2nd place with their Mar’s Rover project in the I2P Competition that was held April 1, 2006 in the San Jose National Competition. The Idea to Product (I2P) competition encourages students and researchers to create successful commercial ventures from university-developed ideas and technologies. The I2P ideas parallel those of Purdue’s EPICS program and the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology’s VDC program. EPICS is a part of the VDC program and together the two work as a unique series where teams of undergraduates are designing, building, and deploying real systems to solve engineering-based problems for local community service and education organizations.
The I2P competition focuses on social entrepreneurship and projects that will be beneficial to the community. The students participating are able to make connections with students from different universities and see the potential impact that their projects can have on the world while and giving the students exposure for their ideas and see how they can make a difference through innovation while they create a unique product that focus on technologies that meet a market demand. This challenge gives participants a chance to experience the entire process of creating a product from start to finish as well as identify the business aspects that would make the project viable in the marketplace.
Nine teams from seven schools Purdue Pennsylvania State University University of California, San Diego Illinois Institute of Technology Butler University Bedford North Lawrence High School in Bedford, Indiana and San Jose State University made the finals representing a range of ideas, including
- Purdue University - ABIWT - Bracelet
- Purdue University - ISB - Mars Rover
- Penn State - The helping hand Project
- University of California San Diego - Diginurse
- Illinois Institute of Technology - KlarAqua
- Butler University - Language In Action
- San Jose State University - Hybrid Human Powered Vehicle
- San Jose State University - Walker with Emergency Lift
- Bedford North Lawrence High School - Swallow Monitoring Device
Where the projects go from the competition depends on the students and schools. Purdue’s EPICS program is set up so that projects progress from semester to semester. Not all of the school’s that participated were involved in programs that run from semester to semester. The top winners in the contest are entered into the international I2P competition to be held at UT Austin. Because Purdue’s ABIWT team won first in the Purdue only competition held at Purdue, they were given a spot to compete in the international competition.
Published June 2006