Training tool for rowers wins top Schoofs prize

Engineering student Nate Altfeather won a first-place $10,000 prize this week in the annual Brainstorm: The Schoofs Prize for Creativity competition for students with a device called the Check-meter that measures negative acceleration, or “check,” of a rowing shell. Fellow student Tom Johnson won a first-place $2.500 prize.in this year’s Tong Prototype Competition for his pneumatically powered shingle stripper.

The Check-meter is a lightweight, clamp-mounted, unidirectional accelerometer used to measure negative acceleration, or “check” of a rowing shell.Johnson’s shingle stripper, designed to increase productivity and decrease physical strain for those removing old shingles from roofs, also won Johnson a $1,000 fourth-place prizes in the Brainstorm competition.

Other Schoofs Prize winners are:

• Second Place, $7,000: Ski-Binding System by Nikhil Bagadia, Jason Berta, James Burke and David Manthei.
• Third Place, $4,000: AKSYS (Anti Kickback System for table saws) by Steven Nackers and Brandon Ripley.
• Fourth Place, $1,000: Self-disarming Suture by Angela Heppner, Briar L. Duffy, Elizabeth K. Nee and Jeffrey M. Phillips.
• Fourth Place, $1,000: Portable Voice Calibrator by Nicole Werner and Lisa Ruehlow.
• Judges Prize for Special Merit, $2,000: Cauterizing Biopsy System by Kelly Stevens

Other Tong Prototype Prize winners are:

• Second Place, $1,250: Portable Voice Calibrator by Werner and Ruehlow
• Third Place, $700: AKSYS (Anti Kickback System) by Nackers and Ripley

Now in its eighth year, the Brainstorm contest rewards ideas that are the most creative, novel, innovative and likely to succeed in the marketplace. The Tong Prototype Prize honors the best prototype developed for the competition.