The nation's top colleges are bringing out their brightest solutions!
NCIIA
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March Madness isn't all about college basketball. It's also about college students competing with their most brilliant solutions for helping people and the planet.
March Madness for the Mind, an annual showcase of innovations from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) top student invention teams, is taking place at the Exploratorium in San Francisco on March 27th. The NCIIA pushes students to make positive and sustainable social and environmental through techy inventions, and scans over 200 colleges for top thinkers. Between ten and fifteen teams are selected based on their clever creation of new products, and show off their work. This year's exhibition has a fantastic crop of students participating.
Thanks to the help of NCIIA, about 100 patent applications have found approval and about 75 new businesses have been started. "As we know, small businesses are important to the growth of the economy: in adverse economic times, small businesses create jobs and stimulate local economies. By putting ideas into action, these students and their enterprises are laying the foundation for a better tomorrow," said Phil Weilerstein, Executive Director of the NCIIA.
Check out some of the great inventions to be shown off this year.
Photo courtesy of nciia.org
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo students have come up with the Polytech Waterbag, a ten liter plastic bladder designed for storing and delivering clean water to people following a natural disaster. The students recognized that providing people with clean drinking water is one of the biggest challenges - and among the most important - following a natural disaster. So, they're developing a new way to ensure people have access to safe, clean drinking water. The Waterbag is equipped with carrying straps and an integrated filter with a dispensing port. According to the team, "It is designed to be used with Procter & Gamble's PURŪ chemical treatment packets; by using the packet along with the filter, particles and pathogens are removed to provide complete water treatment. The Waterbag has other integral features, including: a wide mouth for easy filling in shallow streams, a sediment trap to prevent recontamination, and baffles to enhance mixing. Waterbags are twenty times more compact than five-gallon water jugs to ship, and can treat enough water to supply a family of four for up to ten days."
Bombyx Technologies, a collaboration with Cornell University, is creating a contact lens that will work like an eye bandage, relieving pain and speeding up healing in patients with eye wounds. It heals the tissue, then dissolves after just a few days.
A Colorado State University team is creating low-cost, high-quality products for women in developing countries that will help boost their standard of living, including a birth kit that helps to reduce maternal and infant mortality. They're also developing an affordable water filtration system, since women are the primary water gatherers in most areas.
Photo credit: nciia.org
SolarEase from the University of Pittsburgh focuses on easier installation of solar power.
The team saw that solar panels, which require mounting brackets, outside breakers and ground connections, and through-holes for the wiring, can be complicated for people who want to install it themselves, so they're working on a whole new approach - they're going wireless. The team states that their system "utilizes novel wireless energy transfer technology (WiTricity) to transmit solar power from outside panels to storage units inside, eliminating the need for cable connections through walls, interior/exterior wiring, and structural modifications. Reducing cost, complexity, and long term investment risk normally associated with solar installation will encourage adoption of this green source of energy, coinciding with government initiatives and
energy efficiency programs."
You can see videos of all the projects, and vote for your favorites, over at Inventor's Digest. And if you're in the bay area on March 27th, be sure to stop by the Exploratorium!
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