With big ideas for AI-powered software, improving safety and efficiency on construction sites, and reducing vaccine waste, four finalists have been selected to compete in the sixth annual Entrepreneurial Impact Competition on April 1.
This year, the finalists were selected from a competitive field of 17 applicants. The Entrepreneurial Impact Competition challenges students to apply their engineering knowledge outside the classroom by creating innovative concepts to improve the human condition.
The four student teams will pitch their ideas in front of an audience and a panel of judges for a chance to win one of two $5,000 prizes. Click here to attend the competition, happening at 5 p.m. on April 1 in Room 180 of the Dalney Building.
Read more about this year’s finalists:
DozeOn
Workplace fatalities and injuries, often involving heavy machinery, remain a persistent problem in the construction industry. Civil engineering students Andrea Lewis and Alani Allen created the DozeOn system to keep construction workers safer on the job.
DozeOn is a retrofit, multi-sensor safety system engineered to enhance situational awareness and combat the industry’s persistent visibility-related hazards.
Their system integrates strategically positioned fixed cameras, LiDAR, and thermal imaging into a unified system that that provides operators with comprehensive real-time environmental awareness.
Alani Allen and Andrea Lewis
Aarosh Dahal and Summit Shrestha
FEA.I
Ph.D. students Aarosh Dahal and Summit Shrestha are finalists for the Higginbotham Award with their bid to disrupt the simulation software industry.
Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a key engineering tool used to simulate bridges, buildings, aircraft, and more before they are built. Current FEA software tools are expensive and can take even experienced engineers days to set up.
Dahal and Shrestha have created an AI-powered simulation platform called FEA.I that requires no manual intervention. Users describe their problem in plain English, and the artificial intelligence delivers files that are ready in just minutes.
HydroLoop
Civil engineering student Anuj Patel and mechanical engineering student Robert Hauf teamed up to create HydroLoop, a solution for more efficient dust control on construction sites.
Water trucks are needed for dust suppression on construction sites but operate unsystematically. Operators repetitively spray and respray the entire construction site, using thousands of gallons of water a day.
HydroLoop would address this problem by using automated nozzles and thermal imaging cameras, allowing operators to see surface temperature differences between dry and moist soil.
Anuj Patel and Robert Hauf
OmniTherm
The life-saving power of immunization relies on a system known as the cold chain: a continuous, temperature-controlled network that preserves vaccine safety from manufacturing to patient delivery.
In vulnerable areas around the world, temperature failures, transportation issues, and power outages mean that vaccines often spoil before they can be administered to people in need.
The multi-disciplinary team of Bin Huang, Roshni Chimmili, Veda Kodithala, Adrian Trujillo, Eden Goode and Amaniel Tesfay created OmniTherm to combat vaccine waste. Their solution is a non-electric phase change material carrier engineered to maintain a safe temperature range during the delivery gap where vaccines typically spoil.