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What participants say

Hoopla Rack

Hoopla Rack,
third place and $4,000,
2008 Schoofs Prize for Creativity;
third place and $700,
Tong Prototype Prize;
and Younkle Best Presentation Award

“Through the whole process, I actually began to see my design turn into a prototype, and now my prototype might actually become a patented reality. By the end, I was so happy that I had chosen to take a chance on myself and do something that brought my engineering and hooping life together.”

—Danielle McIntosh

Pen Smart

Pen Smart,
$1,000 Judges’ Award for Special Merit,
2008 Schoofs Prize for Creativity

“I thought of this product two years ago—I wrote it down and kind of forgot about it for awhile. And I realized that if I didn’t do it, I’d always regret it, so I just decided to pursue it. The competition is a great outlet for anyone interested in innovation and development. The experience gives you the tools to develop the idea and the confidence to continue.”

—Daniel Gartenberg

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Tong Prototype Prize 2007

Tactile Feedback for the Blind

Tactile Feedback for the Blind (large image)
Tactile Feedback for the Blind

Tactile Feedback for the Blind: A computer touch screen with sound feedback and tactile tongue stimulation that enables blind users to more easily use a computer

The team worked with their friend Kevin, blind from birth, to develop their prototype.

“What we’ve learned in doing this is the beauty of a prototype. Just doing the concept, you don’t learn nearly as much as you in building a prototype. The concept takes ten minutes. The true challenge is perfecting it into something that can actually be used. There’s no point in inventing something if that’s not where you’re going. The fascinating thing about this invention is it’s something that works. We were asking the question, ‘How can we make it easier for Kevin to use?’ The real question we were answering is, ‘How can we change his life?’”
— Justin Beck

“The biggest lesson is that how you think something will work isn’t actually how it’s going to work in practice. We initially tried it with sound only, hoping that Kevin could trace something by how the pitch was changing, but he couldn’t do it. The prototype is most the valuable thing to validate whether this actually works or not. Without that, you’re shooting in the dark.”
— Jason Malinowski

Innovators: Justin Beck, Nathan Klapoetke and Jason Malinowski



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