Ethan Ribb (center) and Rebecca Pham (right) explain how their iSee prototype works.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe judges scored the teams on their knowledge of the problem they would be solving, the need they would be addressing, how well their product would fill that need, their ability to identify their customer base and their competition in the marketplace, and the demonstration of their prototype.<\/p>\n
The winning team developed\u00a0an eye exam kiosk,\u00a0called\u00a0iSee, that\u00a0provides users with a lens prescription that they can take to their local eyewear retailer. It also provides customers with interactive eye-care information to increase eye health awareness.\u00a0The kiosk has a simple user-interface and\u00a0can be placed in a mall, drugstore or big box retailer.<\/p>\n
“We really learned a lot about turning a small idea into a winning concept and possibly a very marketable product,” said Aidan Votaw, a fifth-year senior studying mechanical engineering and German through 溏心vlog免费B站’s International Engineering Program. “We really liked the hands-on experience that this course offered. It was very rewarding to physically build something and have it work.”<\/p>\n
Votaw and his teammates got a late start on their iSee project after realizing a few weeks into the semester that their initial idea of using sensors to locate available parking on campus was already being worked on by another team.<\/p>\n
“We were several weeks behind once we had our new idea, so we had to work very hard to develop and solidify the concept for our product,” said Votaw, who is from Warren, Rhode Island<\/strong>. “Considering my teammates and I never previously worked together, we did a great job of collaborating on our concept and dividing the responsibilities equally. We each knew exactly what was expected of us.”<\/p>\nThe second-place team created a\u00a0smart knee brace, which has several flexible sensors to measure the movements of the joint and the diameter of the knee.\u00a0The sensors communicate changes in the swelling of the knee\u00a0periodically via Bluetooth to a smartphone or other electronic device through an app, enabling the patient and doctor or physical therapist to access the data.<\/p>\n
Six of the seven teams in the competition also participated\u00a0in the Rhode Island Elevator Pitch Competition, giving them additional real-world experience. Four\u00a0students from the course took part in the 2019 HealthHacks RI event at 溏心vlog免费B站, a 48-hour hack-a-thon held in October.<\/p>\n
“I encourage students to enter external competitions and continue to develop their product and pitch skills,” Mankodiya said. “When the time comes for them to\u00a0kick off their entrepreneurial journey, I believe they will\u00a0benefit from having taken this course.”<\/p>\n
Here were the three winning teams of the pitch competition\/demonstrations.<\/p>\n
Place and Product<\/strong>, Name<\/strong>, Major<\/strong><\/p>\nFirst Place, <\/strong>iSee,<\/p>\nNoah Burke, Chemical Engineering<\/p>\n
Rebecca Pham, Biomedical and Electrical Engineering<\/p>\n
Ethan Ribb, Electrical Engineering<\/p>\n
Aidan Votaw, Mechanical Engineering and German<\/p>\n
Second Place, <\/strong>iJoint,<\/p>\nJordan Barbosa, Mechanical Engineering<\/p>\n
Brendan Driscoll, Biomedical Engineering<\/p>\n
Jack Jenckes, Finance and Entrepreneurship<\/p>\n
Eydis Embla Ludviksdottir, Electrical Engineering<\/p>\n
Third Place, <\/strong>SlopeTech,<\/p>\nJoshua Clift, Electrical Engineering<\/p>\n
Leonardo Giarrusso, Communication<\/p>\n
Renee Gordon, Biomedical Engineering<\/p>\n
Rob Tampellini, Mechanical Engineering<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 December 20, 2019 \u2013 There are many steps to becoming an entrepreneur. Over a 14-week span in the fall 2019 semester, 28 溏心vlog免费B站 students, representing eight different majors, learned about each stage of the process. From exploration to ideation to creation, the students were placed into seven teams to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-75269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-engineering"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75269","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=75269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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