Arctic Innovation Competition 2015 Winners
The UAF School of Management awarded more than $25,000 in cash prizes Saturday, October 17, after the final round of presentations in the 2015 Arctic Innovation Competition. The competition, now in its seventh year, invites innovators to propose new, feasible, and potentially profitable ideas for solving real-life problems and challenges.
Cameron Gackstetter took home the $10,000 first prize for this year’s . His award-winning idea is The ThawHead, a portable, 40-pound apparatus which uses a two-stage process to first thaw ice and then remove the melt water and debris quickly and efficiently, exposing the interior of the container or area needing repair work.
The Arctic Innovation Competition is an idea contest created by School of Management faculty member Ping Lan. After students, engineers, and the AIC Committee reviewed over 100 ideas and ranked them based on qualities of value, feasibility, utility, and novelty, 20 finalists were chosen for the Main division. For each of the JR (13-17 years old) and Cub (12 years old or younger) divisions, the top three ideas were selected and three additional ideas were chosen to receive honorable mention awards.
Finalists in all divisions presented their ideas to a panel of judges on Saturday, October 17 and the top winners were revealed at the BP Award Ceremony:
- 1st Place – $10,000: Cameron Gackstetter, The ThawHead
- 2nd Place – $5,000: Simon Evans, Active Hydronic Ground Cooling Conversion System for Existing Passive Cooling Infrastructure
- 3rd Place – $2,000: Mark Gunkel, Nate Ayers, Eric Ulery & Jake Minnillo, Tidal Pumped Hydro Storage
- 4th Place – $1,000: Duncan Meyers, Arctic Stone Products
- Arctic Kicker Prize (for the best arctic-related idea) – $2,000: Simon Evans, Active Hydronic Ground Cooling Conversion System for Existing Passive Cooling Infrastructure
- Alaska Student Kicker Prize (for the best idea from an Alaska college student) – $2,000: Eric Bookless, Isaac Lammers, Daniel Sandstrom and Neil Gotschall, Paraplegic Sit Ski
The other 15 finalists in the Main division each won a $100 Honorable Mention award (one finalist was unable to attend).
In the AIC JR division, the winners were:
- 1st Place – $500: William DeWilde, Temperature Regulated Oven
- 2nd Place – $300: Samuel Gabe Greenberg & Kyle Hackett, Street Snow Searer
- 3rd Place – $200: Kaylynn Balcom, Notice Me
In the AIC Cub division, the winners were:
- 1st Place – $500: Gage Tilly, Smoke Choke – Pollution Reduction for Wood Stoves
- 2nd Place – $300: Corbin Becker, Plastic Digester for Recycling
- 3rd Place – $200: Isaac Fisher, Fraction App
New this year was the addition of the “Fan Favorite” award. Members of the audience voted for their favorite idea in each division and the winners of the $100 prize and special Lego trophy in each division are:
- Main Division – Parker Merrifield, Commercial & General Aviation Holo-HUD System
- JR Division – Samuel Gabe Greenberg & Kyle Hackett, Street Snow Searer
- Cub Division – Corbin Becker, Plastic Digester for Recycling
Other activities at the event included a comedian, a robotics presentation, balloon art, and guest Wylie Rogers, the 2014 AIC Alaska Student Kicker prizewinner for building a better goal post for ice hockey.
The School of Management would like to thank our partners who helped make this competition possible: BP; Alaska Airlines; Kinross Fort Knox; Northrim Bank; Robinson & Ward, PC; Birchwood Homes; Design Alaska; Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation; Fairbanks North Star Borough; PDC Inc. Engineers; Allstate Insurance, Chris Marok; Anchorage Economic Development Corporation; Doyon, Limited; Fairbanks Memorial Hospital; Great Northwest Inc.; and Juneau Economic Development Council. Thank you to these businesses and organizations for supporting the University and helping to spark innovation and create new opportunities for our community!