With mentorship and funding opportunities on the line, in addition to a chance to present at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin next month, the stakes were higher than ever at the latest Aggies Invent.
In a special one-day Aggies Invent, students had eight hours to create basic prototype solutions for their selected topic related to the “intelligent future.” The teams selected will compete at “Texas A&M Invents for an Intelligent Future” at SXSW, where they will have 48 hours to assemble and test their ideas.
The three teams headed to SXSW showed promising early solutions to different challenges that the “intelligent future” presents. For one group, that is retrofitting new technologies onto old devices to bring them into the internet of things. For another, they aim to use modern manufacturing capability to inexpensively scale down complex sensor systems into a small everyday device to provide life-saving information. And for the third, it’s bringing modern materials and manufacturing technology together in a way that hasn’t been done before.
The three teams of four students were selected from a pool of 32 students on nine teams. They will be in Austin March 11-12 to work on their innovations and present them to a group of industry judges, competing for award funding.
The first team of students includes Magy Avedissian, petroleum engineering; Nga Tang, medical student; and Joey Wippold and Kurt Parizek, biomedical engineering.
The second team includes Philip Bowie, electrical and computer engineering; Coleman Fincher, mechanical engineering; Wesley Kuehn, manufacturing and mechanical engineering technology; and Jana Soares, MBA candidate.
The final team includes Momore Adesanmi, chemical engineering; Bhavani Bedre Shankar, computer science and engineering; James O’Connell, mechanical engineering; and Pavan Shetty, electrical and computer engineering.
Aggies Invent promotes an innovation and entrepreneurial mindset among students at Texas A&M University. It gathers invited students, provides them with the needs statements submitted by sponsors, allows them to self-select teams, and gives them access to industry mentors and support from the Engineering Innovation Center (EIC) to create solutions and prototypes in 48 hours.
For more information and to sign up to receive email updates about Texas A&M’s participation in SXSW, visit sxsw.tamu.edu.
For more information on SXSW, visit sxsw.com.