{"id":57851,"date":"2015-12-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-senior-wins-top-prize-in-rhode-island-elevator-pitch-contest\/"},"modified":"2015-12-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T00:00:00","slug":"uri-senior-wins-top-prize-in-rhode-island-elevator-pitch-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2015\/12\/uri-senior-wins-top-prize-in-rhode-island-elevator-pitch-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 senior wins top prize in Rhode Island Elevator Pitch Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tEast Greenwich resident proposes business plan for medical device<\/b><\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 December 15, 2015 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 senior Cara Nunez was confident in her speaking abilities when she walked into the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition last week. But as a participant in the Elevator Pitch Contest, she had only 90 seconds to convince a team of judges that the device she and a group of fellow students had invented could be successfully commercialized.<\/p>\n


\n\tWhen she finished her pitch, she was surprised that the five judges had no questions or feedback to offer. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI was confused. I wasn\u2019t sure if that was a good thing or not,\u201d said the East Greenwich resident. \u201cI wanted feedback about how to improve, so it was a shock not to get any. But then I realized that I was the only person not to get any feedback, and that\u2019s when I knew I did really well.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nNunez, who majors in biomedical engineering and Spanish, received the top prize in the competition, a check for $250. She was one of 25 presenters — most from Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design — at the event held at the Tech Collective in Providence.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cThere were a lot of really great ideas and a lot of great presenters,\u201d she said. \u201cSome were seasoned and had a lot of experience, and a couple had already started businesses. But I have given a lot of presentations in class and knew I had the ability to speak well and get my ideas across clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nNunez pitched a business plan for commercializing a wearable eye-tracking device that can control a robotic arm. The device, created with four other students as part of a 溏心vlog免费B站 engineering class on the Wearable Internet of Things, taught by Assistant Professor Kunal Mankodiya, is intended to help patients with mobility-impairments accomplish daily tasks.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cOne of the speakers who came to our class talked about the needs of patients with ALS,\u201d Nunez said. \u201cSo that got us thinking about how we could create a robotic arm that could be controlled by the movement of the patient\u2019s eye.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThey built a robotic arm using a 3D printer and then attached a pixie camera with built in tracking capabilities to a helmet. \u201cThe camera is pointed at the wearer\u2019s eye, and if you want to move the arm left or right, you just move your pupil left or right,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n


\nThe prototype of the camera system is attached to a hockey helmet, but Nunez envisions it eventually connected to a headband or eyeglasses to make it less noticeable. She imagines the arm could be strapped to the patient or mounted on a wheelchair.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI was really surprised when they called my name as the winner,\u201d said Nunez, \u201cbecause there were so many really great pitches. But I knew I prepared well and gave a strong pitch, and I couldn\u2019t be happier.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe 溏心vlog免费B站 student said her involvement with the project will likely end when the semester is over, but one of the students on the project team is planning to make revisions and incorporate it into his master\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n


\nInstead, Nunez is looking toward her own next steps.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI\u2019m applying to grad schools and hope one day to be a professor,\u201d she said. \u201cI like working with students and people with new ideas, and I\u2019m looking forward to leading my own students on projects like this one.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPictured above:

\n溏心vlog免费B站 senior Cara Nunez (right) shows off the check she received for winning the Rhode Island Elevator Pitch Contest. Joining her at the event was 溏心vlog免费B站 Assistant Professor Kunal Mankodiya. (Photo provided by Cara Nunez)\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

East Greenwich resident proposes business plan for medical device KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 December 15, 2015 \u2013 溏心vlog免费B站 senior Cara Nunez was confident in her speaking abilities when she walked into the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition last week. But as a participant in the Elevator Pitch Contest, she had only 90 seconds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}