Inventure Prize!

One week ago Karen and I went to Georgia Tech's Inventure Prize, a program which gives incentives to Tech students to create and demonstrate inventions.  The Biomedical Engineering students always do well in this competition, and this year they won first prize, and also won the People's Choice award.

The winning BME team's product is something they call Re-Hand, and it is a rehabilitative device for people with hand or arm injuries.  It's an alternative to squeezing a rubber ball.  The device looks like a joystick, and the person who is rehabbing grips it firmly, while a helicopter computer game reacts to the squeezing.  Combining rehab and fun, whoda thunk!  The winning BME team consisted of Elly Lemar, Daphne Vincent, Alkindi Kibria, and Kunal MacDonald. 

The People's Choice award is a product called Cardiac Tech, and was from a team of Biomedical and Mechanical Engineers.  This ambitious equipment seeks to revolutionize what is presently used to keep the chest cavity open during cardiac surgery.  The present device leads to a lot of bleeding for the patient, while their device seals the cavity off, so there is much less bleeding, and thus, less likely for the patient to need a transfusion.  The BME students of Cardiac Tech are Priya Patil and Matthew Lee.  The three Mechanical Engineering students are Kevin Parsons, Benji Hoover, and Josh DeVane.

The Cardiac Tech team is pictured on the left side above, while Re-Hand is in the middle. The second picture is a couple of the audience members.

What a night for BME, and all GT students.  I am daily reminded of how amazing they are, and how our future is indeed in excellent hands (or re-hands!). 

YouTube on Cardiac Tech:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDFMshzBmf8

YouTube on Re-Hand:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3y-JJTfwlc