Enterprise and Senior Design Teams and Advisors: here is your chance to secure funding for your innovative ideas! The deadline has been extended to encourage participation from more teams. A minimum of 5 teams is needed in order to hold the challenge.
The Vice President for Research Office and Pavlis Honors College are now accepting projects for the Rekhi Innovation Challenge, a crowdfunding competition whose aim is to promote student innovation and entrepreneurship through the use of Superior Ideas. This year, the Challenge has been opened up to any Enterprise or Senior Design teams whose projects include an innovative approach to an important design challenge or market need.
The competition runs from Nov. 1-Dec. 31 and projects must now be submitted by Oct. 26 in order to be considered. To participate, please see the information for teams, advisors, and the application form.
Any questions can be directed to Natasha Chopp at nichopp@mtu.edu.
“Steel Warehouse”
ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest steel producer and a sponsor of numerous enterprise and senior design project teams at Michigan Tech. To support a wider range of project teams, ArcelorMittal conceived the “Steel Warehouse” concept to supply steel to student teams throughout the Michigan Tech campus. This program is managed by the Enterprise Program Office in the Pavlis Honors College.
- Any enterprise or senior project team may request steel (and only steel) for their project.
- To enable support of many teams across campus, requests are limited to $500. Requests > $500 may be considered for approval, depending upon availability of funds and total number of requests received.
**NOTE: The approval and ordering processes have changed.**
Instructions for teams can be found here. A list of preferred steel vendors is provided here.
The Vice President for Research Office and Pavlis Honors College are now accepting projects for the Rekhi Innovation Challenge, a crowdfunding competition whose aim is to promote student innovation and entrepreneurship through the use of Superior Ideas. This year, the Challenge has been opened up to any Enterprise or Senior Design teams whose projects include an innovative approach to an important design challenge or market need.
The competition runs from Nov. 1-Dec. 31 and projects must be submitted by Oct. 21 in order to be considered. To participate, please see the information for teams, advisors, and the application form.
Any questions can be directed to Natasha Chopp at nichopp@mtu.edu.
MTU Forest Biomaterials & School of Forest Resources & Environmental Science is pleased to announce a Sustainable Design Contest sponsored by Plum Creek Timber Company.
This is a interdisciplinary competition and any student with interest can contribute to a team.
For more info:
Enterprise Pop-Up Workshop: Successful Projects, Satisfied Sponsors
Join us for an interactive workshop where we will share techniques to gain early momentum on projects, make positive first impressions, and develop professional relationships with industry sponsors. For teams seeking industry support, we will share information on Enterprise sponsorship and the resources available through the Pavlis Honors College.
When and Where: This session will be held on Thursday Oct. 1 from 6-7:30 pm in the newly renovated Pavlis Honors College Offices (722 M&M). Pizza and drinks will be provided.
About the Facilitators: Rick Berkey (Director, Enterprise Program) and Joe Thompson (Sponsored Projects Manager) will draw upon nearly 35 years of combined experience working in industry and with Michigan Tech’s Enterprise partners and sponsors.
RSVP is required by Wednesday Sept. 30 at 4pm. Attendance is limited to 30 participants; initial priority will be given to allow at least one student from each Enterprise to participate. A confirmation email will be sent out on Wed. to all participants. Please complete the Google form to register.
The Enterprise Program is now accepting Fall applications for the Carnahan Enterprise Scholarship. Please review the scholarship description and application form.
Applications are due by 5pm on Friday Oct. 16. and should be submitted to:
Rick Berkey
Director, Enterprise Program
722 Minerals and Materials Building
by Pavlis Honors College
The Michigan Space Grant Consortium, of which Michigan Tech is a member, will host its annual conference at the University of Michigan on Oct. 31. MSGC supports student work in space-related science and technology—as well as STEM disciplines—in Michigan.
There is currently a call for lecture and poster presentations. Registration is free but required for planning purposes. The registration deadline date is Oct. 19 and travel assistance is available for students. To register and for more information, please visit Michigan Space Grant
The Michigan Space Grant Consortium announces funding opportunities in the following categories: Undergraduate Fellowship, Graduate Fellowship, Pre-College Education, Public Outreach, Teacher Training and Research Seed Grant. Only U.S. citizens are eligible to apply for fellowship grants. The internal Michigan Tech deadline is noon on Nov. 11. Specific information regarding Michigan Tech’s requirements and submission procedures can be found here.
Note: Proposals must be submitted electronically to MSGC only after being reviewed by the Pavlis Honors College and Michigan Tech’s Sponsored Programs Office
For more information contact Paige Hackney, phackney@mtu.edu or 7-4371 in the Pavlis Honors College.
To read announcements, submission requirements and to submit a proposal following an internal review, visit the MSGC website.
The Pavlis Honors College and the Office of Innovation and Industry Engagement held a workshop for faculty, staff and students to consider participating in an Innovation Corps (I-Corps) workshop, offered through the NSF funded I-Corps Sites Program. This workshop offered a valuable opportunity to advance technology-focused business start-up ideas towards commercialization and follow up on funding through SBIR, STTR and private investment. The program is also open to community innovators.
The workshop was conducted in August over a four-week period. Participants also worked on customer discovery. The team-based program structure is similar to the national program that NSF has developed with the help of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs for early-stage technology start-ups. This was a great opportunity for teams to determine and document the commercial potential of their technology through customer discovery using the Business Model Canvas and Lean Start-up technique.
Graduates of this I-Corps Site Program workshop will be better positioned to successfully apply to the National I-Corps program, and graduates of the national program have gone on to achieve higher rates of SBIR/STTR awards than the general population. The program is transformative based on how they approach their research, teaching and other projects they engage in.
The teaching team included Jim Baker, John Diebel and Mary Raber, all of whom have been involved as leaders of technology startups, have participated in the NSF I-Corps training as mentors and who have been trained in the Lean Start-up methodology. Also a team of mentors experienced in the start-up process were available to help navigate the customer discovery process.
by Rick Berkey
The Michigan Tech Supermileage Systems Enterprise took fourth place at the SAE Supermileage Challenge. Rick Berkey, advisor of the Supermileage Systems Enterprise says, “I wanted to share our competition results as many of you have had a hand in the team’s success, whether it’s providing administrative support, help with fundraising, shop and lab support, technical guidance on projects, etc. I’m very proud of this team for what they accomplished and HOW they accomplished it…demonstrating excellent teamwork, integrity, and resourcefulness. Like many competitions, we were challenged on a few safety issues the judges had concerns about, working late into the evening to address them successfully. Of course we also had a lot of fun!”
Berkey says the vehicle was completely new that took two years to design, build, and test. Nothing from the 2013 vehicle was reused and thus it was a major design effort, with the team logging over 5,000 hours (yes 5,000) over two years!
Summary:
29 teams competed in this year’s event, including teams from Canada and the US. Of those 29, 23 made it successfully through technical inspection, and 18 were able to make qualifying fuel economy runs
We were one of only 3 teams eligible for the Endurance Award, which requires a minimum of 4 qualifying fuel runs…BYU earned the award based on higher mpg We were one of only 2 teams with throttle by wire…made possible due in large part to our multidisciplinary team of EE, CpE, CS, and ME majors Our combined verbal/written design report score was 360 out of 450 possible…in the top 1/3, and we know what to do to improve further Tech placed 4th overall with a top mileage of 793 mpg, improving on our 2013 performance of 758 mpg. Check out the official results. We also had the opportunity to be part of a local alumni event on Thursday evening (thanks Kay!) and presented our vehicle to about 12 MTU alumni, including two Supermileage alumni from 2013.
For next year, we’ll be entering the Shell Ecomarathon Americas competition for the first time…a bigger event that will give Michigan Tech more exposure, and an opportunity to demonstrate our new battery electric vehicle (BEV) architecture which is not allowed in the SAE competition. But for now, I think we’re all ready for a nice break over the summer!