MSOE Business Plan Competition winners announced
| Published: 02/24/2013 |
|
A team of mechanical engineering students edged out a team of biomolecular engineers to take first place in the 7th annual MSOE Business Plan Competition.
The winning plan introduced an electric kit designed to motorize skateboards. With approximately 18 million boardsport enthusiasts worldwide, Ferret Boards Motor Skateboard will set out to provide a custom motorization option for nearly any type of skateboard. For winning the competition, the team received $2,000. The second place team, DeriGen-Cellulose Hydrogels, received $1,500. Together, the first and second place finishers will represent MSOE at the Mason-Wells BizStarts Collegiate Business Plan Competition, a regional competition among 21 universities in southeastern Wisconsin that will be held at MSOE’s Todd Wehr Auditorium on April 25.
The competition began earlier this school year when students and alumni were invited to present their business ideas. Nearly 100 students were part of the early stages of the competition. Five entries were selected as finalists and judged on both their plans and formal presentations. The MSOE Business Plan Competition is sponsored annually by MSOE’s Uihlein/Spitzer Center for Entrepreneurship. Dr. Jeffrey Blessing, professor, Rader School of Business, serves as the competition coordinator.
The 2013 MSOE Business Plan Winners were:
1st Place ($2,000)
Ferret Boards Motor Skateboard
Matthew Brazeau, Mike Cosentino and Jake Schneider, mechanical engineering majors
The Ferret is the starter kit that will allow skateboarders to reversibly modify their boards to be electrically driven while eliminating the need to have the kit professionally installed. The kit is a unique way to fully transform one’s existing board into a completely functional electric board. Riders will get to keep their own valued boards without permanent modification, making this a much simpler approach to owning an electric board compared to the alternatives. Ferret’s kit concept will give customers the option of having a desired kit installed professionally by Ferret onto a Ferret integration board (if ordered together) or installing the kit at home onto their existing board.
2nd Place ($1,500)
DeriGen-Cellulose Hydrogels
Jessica Axt, Kathleen Keough and Adam Schaenzer, biomolecular engineering majors
The medical, pharmaceutical and agricultural industries demonstrate needs for various derivatives of cellulose in order to exploit the beneficial properties. DeriGen proposes to produce cellulose derivatives by moving production of cellulose into Escherichia coli giving the potential to create derivatives more predictably through genetic and metabolic engineering. The product would be primarily marketed to the advanced wound care market for use in advanced care, such as hydrogel-based dressings. This is promising because the advanced wound industry is forecasted to double in size within the next couple years. DeriGen has potential to be marketed in other industries, such as for production of acoustic speaker materials. Currently, these industries are working with non-optimal materials which do not have the properties cellulose derivatives have which enable them to hold water, have greater tensile strength, and further fulfill the needs of the target products as specified by their producers.
3rd Place ($1,000)
Impulse Gaming Concepts
Michael Fricke, Adam Resnick and Alex Weise, mechanical engineering majors
Tyler Mrowiec, architectural engineering and business management double major
Hannah Schermerhorn, electrical engineering and technical communication double major
Impulse Gaming Concepts was created around the idea of innovation in the billiards and arcade gaming industries. In recent years, these industries have remained static—no new game ideas or innovative designs have broken through to mainstream culture. Impulse Gaming Concepts’ first commercial product, Tandem Pinball, utilizes elements of creativity, interaction between players, physical skill, and strategic thinking to create a fun and uniquely challenging game experience. The layout of the obstacles within the sloped playing field has the unique ability to easily be customized and rearranged by the players to adjust the difficulty and pace of the game. Tandem Pinball’s electronic responses add to its excitement and fun of the game.
4th Place ($500)
Trace Engineering
Brad Meissner, mechanical engineering major
Kevin Grimstad, electrical engineering major
Tyler Hackbarth and Keenan Nemetz, software engineering majors
Trace Engineering offers engineering from three different disciplines with the purpose of designing and implementing new and innovative solutions for companies. Trace Engineering operates under two main divisions: contractual engineering and new product development. The company was founded to develop a smart textile sensor named the “Area Mat.” The Area Mat is a flexible, formable textile sensor capable of outputting total area and pressure metrics of a force input to the mat. Trace Engineering has filed a provisional patent for the design, and is in the process of filing for a non-provisional patent.
5th place ($250)
Strategic Games Inc.
Adam Van Essen, M.S. in new product management major
Strategic Games Inc. (SGI) will design, manufacture and sell hybrid mobile application/board games. The current board game market offers little in the way of integrating modern technology into the game experience. Technological integration can allow game tasks such as maintaining point count, banking, record keeping, etc. to be automated or simplified.
MSOE is an independent, non-profit university with about 2,500 students. MSOE offers 20 bachelor’s degrees and nine master’s degrees in engineering, business, mathematics and nursing. The university has a national academic reputation; longstanding ties to business and industry; dedicated professors with real-world experience; a 94% placement rate; and the highest average starting and mid-career salaries of any Wisconsin university according to PayScale Inc. MSOE graduates are well-rounded, technologically experienced and highly productive professionals and leaders.