INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Whether their product becomes the next in a line of everyday soy-infused products like crayons, cooking oil, candles, snacks and more, three Purdue University students still managed to invent something that appealed to Indiana Soybean Alliance (ISA) contest judges enough to award the team $20,000 last week.

Claiming the top prize at this year’s ISA-Purdue Student Soybean Product Innovation Competition were Sara Richert, a PR and communications major from Oak Park, Ill., and brothers Evan and Sean Anderson of Churubusco, Ind., majoring respectively in ag and biological engineering, and forestry. The three developed Soy Sniffs, an air freshener boasting 90 percent soy content.

Its primary ingredients are 45 percent soy oil and 45 percent stearic acid from soybeans. Sean Anderson said their grandfather in Michigan is friends with a man who did consulting work for the biodiesel industry, so he sent the brothers some stearic acid to use in whatever project the team decided on.

Soy Sniffs is packaged two ways – as a small scent-infused piece of pasteboard to hang in a vehicle, and in tiny jars that look like candles. Anderson explained these would be good to leave open in places around the house or office where a burning candle might not be safe, and would ideally be packaged a few to a box as different scents.

The product’s best feature, he said, is that the ingredients, including the essential oils for scent, are all-natural and do not contain formaldehyde and benzene like some air fresheners. Richert, who handled the finances of the project, said the vehicle fresheners made in larger volume might sell for about 27 cents an ounce compared to 30 cents for Little Trees fresheners. They estimate once opened, a vehicle freshener lasts about two weeks.

Soy Sniffs’ best features according to ISA judges were that it seems it would take a short time to develop and manufacture to market, and that so much of its content is soy-based – a key feature in finding new uses for all those soybeans Hoosier farmers harvest each fall.

Another team of three students from Corydon, Ind., earned the runner-up ISA prize of $10,000 for Soycotta Pots. Tyler Allen, a computer engineering major, described Soycotta as a cross between peat and terra cotta pots popular with gardeners. The pot is made of meal, a protein binder and sealed with a wax – all derived from soybeans.

“Simple concept, extremely powerful results,” he said the evening of the awards ceremony March 24, displaying the product he developed with teammates Chelsea Sullivan, an accounting and marketing major, and Levi Jackson, in ag and biological engineering. “It fits every aspect or more that you’d want from a flowerpot.”

Germinate seeds or transplant something into the pot and water it as usual, Allen said, leaving it inside or out-of-doors.

Once the plant outgrows the pot or you just want to transplant into the garden or a larger pot, simply crack the pot’s wax seal and plant it along with its contents; water will infiltrate the cracks and break down Soycotta’s organic matter, supplying nitrogen and other nutrition to the plant and soil.

“You’re not only getting a two-for-one, but the soy meal is incredibly inexpensive,” Allen said, fielding cost questions from Dr. Bernie Tao, former Soybean Utilization En-dowed Chair at Purdue who heads up this contest each year.

Jackson said in seeking ideas for their invention, they knew they wanted to make something durable, hard, so they looked around at everyday items that could qualify. Eventually they saw some empty flowerpots.

The winner of the March 24 ceremony’s People’s Choice Award – chosen by popular vote of those in attendance that night – was Team Soya Cell, which invented soy-based materials for lithium-ion batteries “and additional energy storage applications.” This includes technology to power cell phones and electric cars.

Taking home the award and a $500 prize were team members Ram Saraswat of New Delhi, India, Nicolas Dininger of Indianapolis, Arthur Dysart of Baldwin, N.Y., and Jialiang Tang of Dallas, Texas. All four are chemical engineering students at Purdue.

Jane Ade Stevens, CEO of the ISA, topped off the evening with a rundown of some of the products that have come out of the Innovation Competition’s 21 years that are now used widely – such as the aforementioned crayons and candles.

“Who could have predicted this would come from soybeans?” was her refrain as she handed each of several soy products to a child under the age of 16 onstage, whom she’d called up from the crowd to illustrate a point. “We’ve got scientists ready to go out into the world,” she said of the competitors, then of the children, “and this is the next group.”

Other teams submitting soy-based inventions included:

•Team Soy DarN White, a tooth whitening strip: Henry Hamann, biological engineering, Portage, Ind.; and Cody Spoostra, chemistry, Hebron, Ind.

•Team White Alpha, paper correction fluid: Xeuqi Huang, biological engineering, Shanghai, China; and Zhangxuan Liu, ag engineering, Wuhan, China.

•Team Soycap Filter, an air filter allowing high airflow to engines: Abisoye Adebayo of Ijebu Ode, Nigeria, and Xi Wu of Beijing, China, both in ag and biological engineering; Melanie Lewis, agribusiness, Shelbyville, Ind.; and Jyotika Tuhan, management and marketing, New York, N.Y.

•Team Soyglow, glow sticks: Benjamin Lins of Racine, Wis., Sree Panuganty of Madison, Ala., and Drew Williamson of St. Louis, Mo., all in chemical engineering.

•Team Soyfreeze, an antifreeze/coolant: Evengy Grunin, actuarial science/applied statistics, and Gloria Novikova, chemical engineering; both are from Moscow, Russia.

•Team Soy Guard, a filter face mask: Ryan Hancock from Lafayette, Ind., and Frank Peng of Guangzhou, China, both in industrial engineering; and Logan Poindexter of Indianapolis and Andrew Yang of Carmel, Ind., both in chemical engineering.

•Team Sticky Soy Bandits, vehicle windshield cover: engineering students Colleen Kettner of Gilbert, Ariz., Jessica Moster of Clarkston, Mich., Aspasia Padgiotis of Ashburn, Va., and Ashley Van Wormer of Warsaw, Ind.

•Team DL Soy Cork, long-term storage wine bottle topper: Ryan DeBusk, animal bioscience, Paso Robles, Calif.; and Collin Link, civil engineering, Liberty, Ohio.

Of all 39 students, Stevens noted, “They looked into the future, and they tried to create something … What I’ve learned in my old age is that in order to predict it, you have to create it.”