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Student inventors graduate, pick up patents

Oliver St John
  • Chris Taylor won %2420%2C000 from Georgia Tech%27s Inventure Prize to develope his robotic dog toys
  • Justin Vannieuwenhoven%27s fishing rod holder won UW Madison%27s Innovation Days competition this year
  • The student-designed Uji shower head has won %2415%2C000 in grants and awards say inventors
Chris Taylor, a student at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, just won $20,000 in the school's invention competition to develope his line of robotic dog toys, called Chewbots.

As college grads pick up their diplomas, some inventive dorm-room tinkerers are picking up patents, too.

In the race for post-college employment, many students are going the entrepreneurial route, using their time in college to design a product and try to bring it to market by graduation. In an era where the cost of four years at a decent college can rival that of a half-way-decent new home, some student inventors want to leave campus with more than a degree in their hands.

"The interest students have in invention is very remarkable," says Ray Vito who organizes Georgia Tech's Inventure Prize competition. He says engineering is starting to become cool again. Before the competition started four years ago, he tried to create an award for a student with the best patent, but he couldn't find anybody who had patented anything. "That's changed dramatically, and that's come about from a culture change."

Some student-designed products this year:

• Robotic Dog Toys. Chewbots are toys that drive Fido crazy by wiggling around and running away on their own accord. Their creator, Chris Taylor, just graduated from Georgia Tech where Chewbots won $20,000 from an invention competition. He's got three designs: a chase-able duck on wheels, a rubber snowman that bounces along with a vibration motor, and a plush version for dogs afraid of the snowman. But do dogs like robots? "Yes they do. They love them," Taylor says.

Soap Grater. A team of Freshmen from Rice University designed a soap dispenser that grates bar soap like Parmesan cheese. It even uses a Parmesan cheese grater. It serves another purpose aside from cleaning hands, say its creaters: It's sure to give guests something to talk about when they come back from the bathroom. Kayla McCarty, Marie Hoeger, Sarah Hernandez, and Josiah Grace, designed it in an engineering class for a kitchen-themed eatery, The Pass & Provisions.

Sunlight bulb. The first invention since the window to bring sunlight inside, a light bulb designed by Jeremy Blum, Kelton Minor, and John Ciecholewski connects to the web and changes color according to what sunlight would look like where you live. Minor thought of the idea last year as a senior at Cornell and has continued to develop it as a grad student at the same school. The group hopes to sell the SUNN bulb between $30 to $60 by Christmas time.

• Detachable skateboard motor. Joe Carabetta, a 21-year-old nuclear engineering major at Purdue University has invented a motor that screws onto the truck bolt on any skateboard and uses a friction drive rolling on top of the wheel to zip it along. He plans to sell it for around $300 after crowdfunding the initial costs.

Self-adjusting fishing rod holder. After his grandfather complained that he never caught as many fish when the water was choppy, Justin Vannieuwenhoven, a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, designed a fishing rod holder that self-adjusts to keep the bait at the end of the line level as the boat tips. He's selling the holder, which can also be used from land or for ice fishing, for $15 on his website

Shower head with a conscience. Four seniors at Tufts designed a light-up shower head called Uji that turns from green to red over eight minutes, reminding you you're taking too long. Sam Woolf, Brett Andler, Tyler Wilson, and Joo Kang originally intended to sell it for $50 to the eco-friendly crowd interested in saving water, says Woolf, but it may also have an audience of parents whose teenagers spend too long in the shower.