Page 27 - UD Research Magazine Vol5-No2

Hawk. Recently awarded Center for Advanced Tech- nology grant from Delaware Biotechnology Institute.
mTrigger: Biofeed- back device. Company will be incorporated fall 2015. Potential product launch January2016. Continued business development and development of Bluetooth version for fall semester.
Pocket Farmer:
Mobile application offering information and diagnosis on health of conifers for growers. Beta testing continues.
SimuCare: Five simu- lation training products
for health care industry (in partnership with Mechanical Engineering Senior Design). Beta testing underway, start- up viability being evaluated. Second-generation proto- types in development.
QR Code: Basic research for a pilot study on the use of image-embedded QR codes at UD. Pilot study, business planning and app develop- ment during fall 2015.
Quad Crew: Adap- tive crew boat for adults with physical disabilities, in partnership with Mechanical Engineering Senior Design. Research continues and WinTech manufacturing has
expressed interest in partnership for devel- opment.
NEW THIS FALL
The Tree Butler:
Business and prototype development for a new design for tree support systems.
Packet Protein:
Business and product development for a new company based on protein powder.
They could and they did.
“Four weeks ago five strangers met in
a room with a simple request,” he said, when his team presented its work at a Spin In event last spring. They emerged with “PocketFarmer,” an app designed to help Christmas tree growers identify problems and stop diseases that could damage their trees and their business.
“We narrowed it down to conifers—to the diseases and disorders those trees
get,” Gregory said. The application offers descriptions of problems, pests and other threats in a format farmers can use in the field. “But it is generic enough to expand.”
Nate Smith, a plant and soil science major, was part of the PocketFarmer team.
“It was an interesting and good experience to work with everybody from different majors and cultures,” he said. “To bring them all together in one room—it’s one of those things you never have. I was just taking all these plant classes.”
This gave him many new contacts, he said, and broadened his understanding of the business and engineering consider- ations of such efforts.
Several teams continued their work through the summer. Typically, they collabo- rate for at least 15 hours each week, McLaughlin said, and work on research, coding, design and other tasks the rest of
the time.
“I could have worked for a bank this summer, but this offered serious hands-on engineering work and in our line of work that is super important,” said Brett Smith, a senior electrical engineering major who joined the mTrigger project a few months ago. “You might work for an established company only to have your project shelved after six months of work. With this, you’re
contributing to something that will be put to use right away.”
Myla Lyles of Middletown joined the project this summer. She is a senior exercise science major at Wesley College and was immediately drawn to the challenge.
“My part is to give correct placement of the electrodes,” she said. She gets that—she’s trained in that. The rest of the collaboration is new territory.
“This is a new experience for me,” she said. “I have never been part of something we were all building.”
Jordan Burchfield, who graduated this spring from Delaware Tech, also is on the mTrigger team. He plans to attend UD and major in mechanical engineering.
That team illustrates the reach the Spin In program offers—drawing in students from multiple disciplines, from beyond UD, and offering all involved the chance to apply their skill and expertise in practi- cal ways to solve problems, learn from each other and see what spins out.
In coming months, OEIP has been invited to present the concept at a national meeting of EPSCoR and a regional meeting of the National Institutes of Health’s IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Program (INBRE). It is building an entre- preneurial community and is developing additional entry points for students. Spin In soon will be part of the University’s cohort program in innovation and entrepreneurship.
Nate Smith, left, was part of the Spin In team that created PocketFarmer, a smartphone application, in response to a request from Nancy Gregory, right, of UD’s Cooperative Extension Service.
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KATHY F. ATKINSON