Drone Innovation, Vertical Farming Tech Prime Embry-Riddle Entrepreneurship Competitors | Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College

From new flight know-how for uncrewed plane techniques to an innovation in vertical farming, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College’s eighth annual TREP Expo spotlighted the highest enterprise concepts of 30 student-run startups.

“It was the most important TREP Expo ever, with 30 student-led startup concepts and 78 contributors,” stated Dr. Ramy A. Rahimi, appearing director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and assistant professor of Entrepreneurship. “We additionally welcomed the primary Prescott Campus workforce to compete within the TREP Expo.”

The college’s annual entrepreneurship competitors, held Nov. 17 on the Daytona Beach Campus, is a enterprise competitors testing the business viability, innovativeness and general curiosity of entrepreneurship ideas.

“What I really like about TREP Expo is it exhibits simply how a lot the spirit of creativity and innovation is alive amongst our college students,” stated Dr. Shanan G. Gibson, dean of the David B. O’Maley College of Business.

Groups current ideas in a poster session and pitch them to a distinguished panel of students, practitioners and trade consultants for an opportunity to win $1,000 in money prizes in three classes, or “flights”: Aviation, Aerospace and Engineering; House Expertise Repurposed; and World Merchandise and Providers. The TREP Expo, which is open to college students, alumni, school and employees, additionally awards $500 in money prize to at least one “Folks’s Selection” winner.

Aviation, Aerospace and Engineering Award: Platyworks Design Bureau

Platyworks Design Bureau received the Aviation, Aerospace and Engineering flight for its flight management system designed for Uncrewed Plane Methods (UAS), or drones, that would make them extra dependable and safer to fly.

“We’re primarily addressing the bigger uncrewed plane the place a failure could possibly be catastrophic,” stated Robert Moore, who’s incomes his Master of Science in Unmanned and Autonomous Systems Engineering.

Moore, together with teammates Todd Martin and Jose Cabrera, has been working for years on the idea. Backed by funding from NASA’s College Pupil Analysis Problem, the workforce has constructed prototypes and examined them on completely different plane.

A system just like the one Platyworks is creating could possibly be a game-changer within the UAS trade, doubtlessly permitting for the easing of federal laws and the enlargement of developments like drone supply and concrete air mobility.

Moore stated he’s grateful for the award, plus the expertise to share his workforce’s concepts.

“I obtained perspective from the panel of judges,” he stated. “TREP Expo is not only for judging — it’s additionally good for receiving mentorship and recommendation from entrepreneurs.”

The House Expertise Repurposed Award was awarded to the Miners Security Sleeve, represented by undergraduate college students Greg Stirrat and Syanne Andino.

House Expertise Repurposed Award: Miners Security Sleeve Answer

The House Expertise Repurposed flight featured 10 groups that participated within the faculty-led NASA Expertise Switch Program by means of Rahimi’s Entrepreneurship programs.

“The House Expertise flight is actually repurposing NASA-developed house know-how to resolve issues on Earth,” stated Rahimi.

The House Expertise Repurposed Award was granted to the scholar workforce that developed the Miners Security Sleeve, which makes use of NASA’s Superior Hydrogen and Hydrocarbon Gasoline Sensor on an modern wearable arm sleeve that’s designed to alert miners to hazardous situations.

The workforce consisted of Syanne Andino and Andrew Osgood, who’re each Aviation Business Administration college students, and Aeronautical Science scholar Greg Stirrat. They designed the arm sleeve to be programmed to establish and measure methane, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, temperature and strain ranges in real-time. Worn each day by miners whereas working, the system would alert them to hazards utilizing numerous LED lights and knowledge can be collected and saved.

“We ready for weeks and weeks,” stated Andino. “We felt like our laborious work confirmed at the moment.”

Acreage Farms, represented by Ph.D. scholar Collin Topolski, received the World Merchandise and Providers Award.

World Merchandise and Providers Award: Acreage Farms

Acreage Farms received the World Merchandise and Providers Award for its cellular monitoring system designed to extend plant productiveness in vertical farming. The workforce included Collin Topolski, who’s incomes his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, plus alumnus Andy Zamora (’20) and alumna Meagan Shivers (’20).

Proper now, Acreage Farms is concentrated on optimizing progress environments and rising steady and constant meals manufacturing on Earth, Topolski stated. However ultimately, he can envision the system getting used to create meals techniques to maintain people in house — primarily on the moon and Mars.

“I’ve at all times wished to work with vegetation in house to advance capabilities in human house exploration associated to meals manufacturing and useful resource recycling,” stated Topolski.

Viewers Selection Award: Guardian Pittsburgh

Guardian Pittsburgh received the Folks’s Selection Award for a NASA-Patented Fiber-Optic Sensing System (FOSS) that firm CEO Maricarin Minnock designed to watch the structural well being of bridges and different constructions.

Minnock, an Aviation Business Administration scholar, stated she was impressed after a bridge collapsed in her hometown of Pittsburgh in January 2022.

“This one hit near house,” she stated. “I reside a couple of mile from the place it occurred.”

She proposed utilizing FOSS to supply fixed monitoring of the bridge that will detect motion as much as 1 / 4 of an inch. Information can be collected and saved to detect stress and movement, plus permit for evacuation and reassessment of a construction in peril of collapse. 

Along with saving lives, the system would additionally get rid of the price of bridge inspections, she stated.

Minnock, a enterprise main who graduates in Could, stated she received second place within the college’s 2022 Launch Your Venture earlier this 12 months. Subsequent, she hopes to construct a prototype of her idea.

“I’m excited to take it to the subsequent degree,” she stated.

The TREP Expo, sponsored by the Heart for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and David B. O’Maley School of Enterprise, additionally held a dialogue panel moderated by Dean Gibson that included Dr. Ali Tamijani, a professor of Aerospace Engineering and CEO/co-founder of Novineer, Inc.; Daybreak Haynes, CEO of StarterStudio; Meredith Reeves, Kennedy House Heart (KSC) T2X program lead at NASA; Neil Carew, principal at PSG Fairness; and Trent M. Smith, KSC T2 program lead at NASA.

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