Student
Success Story:
Randall
Family Big Idea Competition, 1st Price
By Yash Mokashi, CMI Fellow
The Center for Medical Innovation
would like to congratulate Bioengineering Graduate Student (MBA/ MS- Medical
Product Engineering), Nick Scangas, and his team on achieving 1st place (General/IT Category) in the 2014 Randall Family Big Idea Competition and being awarded $20,000.
The team,
made up of: Nick Scangas -
MBA/MS- Medical Product Engineering, Emmanuel
Taylor - PhD. Electrical Engineering, Dean Rosnewald - MBA/MIB, Jai Kumar - BS
Neuroscience, and Abhishek Agarwal – MBA pitched their idea for the SolarCell at
the Big Idea Competition.
“The experience of the Big Idea
Competition was one of the best experiences of my life. The team experience at
the competition was literally life changing” said Dean. The skills required to
work in a team and the ability to collect ideas and turn them into a novel
innovation are nurtured in the courses at Medical Product Engineering program.
These skills helped Nick Scangas excel in the competition and along with his team
win the first price.
The
motivation for the SolarCell idea was to eliminate the need for diesel
generators and connectivity to the grid which requires trenching sometimes up
to a mile. Currently, there are no solar powered cellphone towers in the USA.
The only method of powering cellphone towers is not only detrimental to the
environment but also increases cost of setting up cellphone towers. What makes
the SolarCell approach novel is in that the connections between the solar panels,
batteries and IT equipment all operate using DC power. Compared to the AC power
distribution systems that dominate the electric grid, DC is more efficient in
this application and leads to huge cost savings. The team proposed mounting the
panels directly onto the towers or having the panels in a pavilion besides the
tower.
Following
is a video prepared by the team for the competition:
SolarCell
12/31/2014