Dublin High School Student Engineers Compete in Entrepreneur Competition

Best Prototype and 3rd Place Award

For the second year, Dublin High School student engineers had a chance to showcase innovate projects to the community and compete for prizes in the Dublin High Entrepreneur Competition & Showcases. The event, organized by DHS Engineering & Design Academy teacher Eugene Chou (who was recently profiled in BuzzFeed), included live demonstrations and a rapid fire series of student presentations in front of a panel of eight judges from Chevron, Google, IBM, Oracle, Sandia National Laboratory and the University of Notre Dame.

The top award ultimately went to TypID, a cloud-based software application that checks for student cheating and assignment copying. The team was also awarded $500 by Pearson plc for the “Best Education Application” in the HS Hacks competition earlier this year. Second place went to the Water Savior project for a shower adapter that helps save water while warming up the shower, and third place (and the Best Prototype award) went to the Automatic Canine Water Fountain to provide a more water efficient and clean drinking solution for dog parks.

First Place Team

While the format of the event was a Shark Tank-like rapid fire series of presentations, the real winners were the students who were able get a taste of real-world product design and creation, including identifying a problem, evaluating solutions, prototyping and building a business case. Each team had to present their idea to the judges, with Engineering Academy teacher Katina Lewis keeping a strict eye on the clock.

Over 100 Engineering Academy students (from the Principles of Engineering  and Introduction to Engineering Design classes) participated during the school year. Out of all projects developed, sixteen were selected by teachers and students for inclusion in the Entrepreneur Competition, with eight teams making it to the final round. Each team had 5 minutes to present and 2 minutes to answer questions from the panel of judges. Prizes included a poster signed by MythBusters Adam Savage and Kari Byron from the Dublin High School Engineering Academy Open House Starring MythBusters and swag from companies represented by the judges including Google.

In addition to the live presentations, student teams also competed for the best display in the showcase competition.

After difficult deliberations, the judges announced the winners:

• First Place: TypID – Justin Gau, Navneedh Maudgalya, Rik Reddy, Kimberli Zhong
• Second Place: Water Savior – Connor Phippen, Clayton Silva, Alex Dunham, Aileen Jeong
• Third Place: Automatic Canine Water Fountain – Kate Williams

• Best Prototype Award – Automatic Canine Water Fountain – Kate Williams
• Most Energetic Presentation Award: Platform Car – Brayden Benzien
• Simplicity and Creativity Award: Portable Bathroom Lock – Tim Arnold, Niko Cory, Tim Degerness, Elijah McIntosh

• Best Showcase: WAVID – David Gilman, Matthew Ng, Kumaran Ratnam, Shiromen Singh
• Showcase Runner Up: Home Water Filter – Anne Griffin, Alex Omo, Noah Frazier, Sean Last

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Presentation Teams:

• Water Savior – Alex Dunham, Aileen Jeong, Connor Phippen, Clayton Silva
• TypID – Justin Gau, Navneedh Maudgalya, Rik Reddy, Kimberli Zhong
• Pocket Maker – Alison Jones
• Portable Bathroom Lock – Tim Arnold, Niko Cory, Tim Degerness, Elijah McIntosh
• Platform Car – Brayden Benzien
• Exercise to Energy – Grant Lemen, Ozzie Garcia
• EmuS – Aaron Colmenares, Riley Smith
• Automatic Canine Water Fountain – Kate Williams

Showcase Teams:

• Ambiance App – Kyle Haggin, Josh Reiss, Eithan Santos-Prior, Danny Van Bonn
• Automatic Canine Water Fountain – Kate Williams
• Bite Me – Jessie Sher, Neetika Patel, Kana Mishra, Connor Rathjen
• Cable Organizer – Alexei Pacholuk, Abhinav Seghal, Ray Pan, Zachary Villarosa
• Droplet – Chandler Cruz, Edmond Lei, Krisha Rammohan
• EmuS – Aaron Colmenares, Riley Smith
• Hide-a-Gum – Hunter Chapin, Koji Chan, Dallas DeCarie, Adi Lotti
• Home Water Filter – Anne Griffin, Alex Omo, Noah Frazier, Sean Last
• Ice Cream Cool Can – Justin Johal, Sylis Keophilavanh, Suhail Sadiq, Raianne Sanchez
• Pocket Maker – Alison Jones
• Platform Car – Brayden Benzien
• RIFD Key Card – Frank Cai
• Tinkle – Suren Gunturu, Aaron Lin, Jordan Romero, Tim Fong
• TypID – Justin Gau, Navneedh Maudgalya, Rik Reddy, Kimberli Zhong
• Water Savior – Connor Phippen, Clayton Silva, Alex Dunham, Aileen Jeong
• WAVID – David Gilman, Matthew Ng, Kumaran Ratnam, Shiromen Singh

Judges:

• Disa Zaplatosch, Sandia National Laboratory
• Vivek Palecar, Chevron
• Gary Nishida, Chevron
• James Morehead, Google
• Jeff Flores, Oracle
• Tina Chou, Sandia National Laboratory
• Jack Chinkonsung, IBM
• Steve Batill, University of Notre Dame