By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Two college roommates were among 19 students walking away with a sizable share of prize money from last week’s Student Product Innovation Competition.

Sponsored by the checkoffs of the Indiana Soybean Alliance (ISA) and the Indiana Corn Marketing Council (ICMC), the yearly contest fosters new uses for two of the state’s most abundant agricultural commodities – inventions which then have the potential to be developed into marketable goods.

The Purdue University competition culminates in a March banquet honoring the top three winners using each commodity, as well as a “People’s Choice” prize chosen by those attending the dinner.

A kernel of an idea

One of those aforementioned roommates, senior Tom Grimes of Fort Wayne, Ind., won the Corn Competition along with fellow nuclear engineering juniors Alex Bakken of Saint Joseph, Mich., and Nick Hume of St. Louis, Mo. Their entry, Impact Flooring, represents a process by which cornstalk material is chemically altered and heated to apply to wood floors as a protectant.

“We always like to think, how does nuclear engineering help everyday things?” Grimes said, for development of the idea.
Polyurethane is great for chemical protection of the wood material, Bakken said, and makes floors easy to clean. He said, however, it does little to protect the wood from abrasion – if something sharp hits it, it’s likely to leave marks. The corn-based “shell” of Impact Flooring, the two teammates said, not only does both of these things, if applied correctly it is “perfectly translucent.”

Bakken said it’s also more environmentally friendly than polyurethane and just slightly more expensive – about 12 cents per square foot, versus 10 for polyurethane.

The three young men split the $20,000 first prize. Second- and third-place runners-up in Corn were for products named Stovecover and Kolawesm, respectively.

Chinese students Diezhang Wu, a junior in food science, and Shuai Wang, a senior studying biological and food process engineering, developed Stovecover, a corn-based spray designed to protect stove surfaces and make cleaning easier. The two divided a $7,500 prize.

In third were the inventors of Kolawesm, a 95 percent corn-based peelable paint. Senior Madhuri Kanala, studying ag economics, said there are already peelable paints on the market for temporary uses – decorating personal vehicles to cheer sports teams, for example.
Kolawesm – which she said is a phonetic smash-up of “cool” and “awesome” – is usable on several types of surfaces, including metal, glass, rubber, cement and tiles. It lasts outside upwards of seven days, becoming biodegradable, and since it’s nontoxic it’s safe for children.

“We tried to get a little innovative,” she said, adding the team tested it on several surfaces – including cloth, with which it still has some problems.

Kanala, who hails from India, shared a $5,000 prize with chemical engineering senior Julia Finer of Wooster, Ohio, and West Lafayette, Ind., sophomore Jack Huynh, studying ag and biological engineering.

Using the ol’ bean

Taking home the top prize of $20,000 in the Soybean Competition were four inventors who developed a soy-based alternative to drugs such as Tylenol to deliver the pain reliever acetaminophen to users at a purported lower cost, and with fewer potential allergens.

Krista Eakins, a senior in biological engineering and pharmaceutical sciences from Connersville, Ind., described the soy protein used in Soytabs as 99 percent digestible, containing a lower concentration of soy than that which usually triggers an allergy. She said each tablet can be up to 70 percent acetaminophen (the soy is just an excipient, or inactive ingredient, that physically binds the pill).
Eakins said the team found soy binds better than other materials they tested, and the dry roller compaction method of making the pills saves on time and energy costs over the wet granulation/drying process industry currently uses. The soy replaces binders such as starch and lactose.

Her teammates were biological and food process engineering majors Brittany Phillips of Monroe, Wis., and Danielle Carpenter of Plainfield, Ind., and nuclear engineering student Ryan Fox of Rising Sun, Ind.

Remember the Impact Flooring team? Grimes’ roommate, Matthew Platek – a chemical engineering student from Arlington Heights, Ill. – was on the team taking home the $7,500 second-place Soy prize for Soy Sole. Others on the team were twin brothers David and Jordan Esbin of Carmel, Ind., studying biology and economics, respectively, and Samir Shah, an economics major from India. Soy Sole is a soy-based compound designed as a filler to strengthen rubber for a variety of uses. Platek said the team primarily figured the material for shoe soles, but it can be used in flooring, belts, hoses, door/window profiles, gloves and many other items.

They picked running shoes, he explained, because it’s a product people are willing to pay a little more for; one of Soy Sole’s selling points is it cuts down on petroleum in the rubber, reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well.

The Soy Sole team also took home this year’s People’s Choice Award at the banquet, which included a $500 cash prize sponsored by the ISA.

Coming in third for Soy was the Sweet Swirl team, comprised of hospitality and tourism management grad students Michael J. Brown of Solvang, Calif., and Brian Hunter of Mill Creek, Ind., and chemical engineering senior Mark Endo of Glenview, Ill. Sweet Swirl is a soy-based coffee sweetener; the team split $5,000.

The ISA has sponsored 15 Soybean Competitions; for 2009, the ICMC threw its resources behind the first Corn Competition. Not only does this give Indiana corn and soybean farmers potential new avenues for sales, it gives Purdue students practical experience and the chance to make a name for themselves in a future career.
“The students are a product (of this), too,” said Dr. Bernie Tao, ISA Soybean Utilization Chair at Purdue, noting this year’s 23 competitors hail from 12 academic departments. “They will go on to carry this with them” and have a larger impact on the world than in just agriculture.

Four other students also participated in these two competitions. Sophomores Conor Barber from Fort Worth, Texas, and Chris Jones from San Diego, Calif. – studying actuarial science and biomedical engineering, respectively – developed Tumble Away, dissolving dryer sheets whose composition is 80 percent corn. They said the product shreds in the dryer, reaching more clothes, and is nontoxic and cheaper to manufacture than regular dryer sheets.

Grad student Nishi Rochelle and interdisciplinary engineering junior Manaz Taleyarkhan, both from Lafayette, Ind., was the only team participating in both the Soybean and Corn competitions. They submitted a corn-based flavored, color-changing beverage stirrer called Swirlz, and a soy-derived clothing protector named, appropriately, Soya.