FAU WAVE COMPETITION CELEBRATES FIFTH YEAR
by BRITTANY SYLVESTRI | Thursday, Apr 09, 2020
Florida Atlantic University has announced the winners of the annual Wave Competition, an undergraduate research competition organized by FAU’s Division of Research. Students have been working on innovative projects for the past two semesters, taking their ideas from concept to reality.
The event was held online for the first time with more than 65 virtual attendees. The program challenges students to submit innovative ideas that target societal issues and provides seed funding for project development. Projects are rated on their innovation, feasibility, commercialization, research efforts and problem significance.
This year’s first place winner, Paris Prince, a junior at FAU High School, developed SPod – Sanitizing Pod, which allows for sanitation to be easy and accessible while benefitting the environment. The goal is to create sanitizing pods, with a torus shape as a squeezable bioplastic spherical ball that contains clean water.
This year’s second place winner, Vassili Georgakopoulos, a senior at FAU High School, developed 40s Not Feelings, a swimbait specifically designed for snook, redfish, tarpon and grouper. The square tail and pivoting hook make significant amounts of disturbance in the water and performs like no other lure on the market.
Third place went to “Drone-based Quantum Communication,” a team that included students from FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, Alexandra DeCesare, Daniel Carvalho and Robert Snyder. The project focused on the design and establishment of a mobile, ad-hoc, reconfigurable quantum communication network, that can open new links and result in substantial reductions in turbulence-related loss and avoid weather interruptions.
The community engagement award winner was “The Eswatini Foot Bridge,” a team that included students from FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, Alexander Hintze, Samantha Robinson, Esther Mitchell, Matthew Maracallo and Brandon Caniff. The team came up with a solution to design and build a suspended cable footbridge in Eswantini, a country in southern Africa that has a lack of infrastructure. Their solution will provide the community with decades of safe, year-round transportation across the river and connect them to vital resources.
“We are proud to celebrate our fifth year of the Wave program where students have developed virtual stem labs, a helmet that can translate thought into action, and biodegradable sanitizer capsules,” said Regina Thompson, student entrepreneurship manager in FAU’s Division of Research. “We are in awe of our student’s innovation, creativity, and unbridled ambition during these trying times.”
For more information about the FAU Wave Competition, click here.
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