Our engineering students had a strong presence in the Make-A-Thon event.
In the technology category, first place winners include Travis Pereira (UC Davis BioMed grad) and SSU ES alumni Erik Zaro, Brandon Mondo and Aram Yegiazaryan, who employed coffee mugs with a stick-on, wireless tag (no power needed in the tag) to make serving coffee more efficient (no lines for ordering or paying because it is already done in the cloud prior to arrival) and less wasteful (the permanent mugs reduce excess trash from used paper and plastics cups). In addition to $1,500 in cash (which they are reinvesting back into the business), they are in talks with the SoCo Nexus incubator to accelerate their business.
Third place winners was a tie between two SSU ES groups. Group 1 presented a device which listens for emergency vehicles and notifies an audibly impaired driver with lights. In addition to hearing loss, someone who is playing their music too loud won’t miss the visual warning to be extra cautious. Members include Hanan Pisheh, Jose Avila, Aaron Marquez, Omar Alvarez and Jorge Inocencio Madrigal.
Group two of the third place winners include SSU ES students Mayson Lager, Jeffrey Booher-Kaeding, Rona Jergenson, Javier Montiel, and Jimmy Cao. They made a bike lock with a fingerprint scanner.
We also had contributions from Team Hard Knocks whose jewelry box only opens with a secret knock pattern. The members included SSU ES majors Nader Srouji, Taylor Jones and Andrew Baldwin.
Another team (which includes SSU ES students Alexis Buenrostro and Gabriel Sacher) worked on a plastic extruder intended to recycle 3D prints back into usable filament. Additional SSU ES students included Arturo Arcos Ramos, David House, Joshua Papanicolas, and Abraham Palmarin, were seen working on a robot. Miah Crockett, Jack Mikolon, and Edson Hernandez Ruiz worked on a robot during day one (Saturday). No picture unfortunately. Other familiar faces and helpers were seen as well, including Jasmine Rodriguez-Medina.
Pizza, salad, and plenty of Red Bull kept us hopping. All told, it was a good time for all involved. I can’t wait for the next one! You don’t have to wait either. Get started now, on the next big thing. First, do no harm to yourself or others. Seek help if you are going beyond your comfort zone in voltage, current, power, temperature, etc. The SSU faculty will always be available to help you make decisions to increase safety. Be creative, learn safe practices, make interesting or useful things, have fun, share your creation with the World, and maybe get rich in the process. Enjoy and good luck!