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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 2008

Ice Pod

Ice Pod (large image)
Ice Pod

Ice Pod: A portable device to measure ice thickness on a body of water so the user can determine safety

“One of the biggest things we’ve learned is that sometimes designs can look very good on paper or in your imagination, but being forced to build a prototype makes you realize what will work and what won’t. It takes everything you’ve learned in your engineering classes and makes it real all of a sudden, so you have to think about the full problem rather than pieces of it.”

—Matt Hemke

Innovators: Matt Hemke, Dustin Jepperson, Matt Orton, Bala Shanmugham and Alyssa Skulborstad

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