University of Wisconsin students constructed everything from a bathing suit made out of computer keys to a residence hall composting station at this year’s 100-hour Wiscontrepreneur Challenge.
Supported by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation, the event challenged the entrepreneurial abilities of 160 students throughout the course of five days. Participating students received a $15 voucher to purchase materials from UW’s Surplus With a Purpose shop.
Students were then encouraged to use the surplus materials, which included test tubes, hockey pucks and light bulbs, to produce an original product that would either generate profit or aid the greater society in some way.
“It never ceases to amaze us how creative students can be when given a limited amount of time and money,” Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications in the Office of Corporate Relations Doug Bradley said.
Bradley added the event aimed to trigger new thinking about possible entrepreneurial ideas and to extend entrepreneurial principles campus-wide to students of various areas of study.
Since entrepreneurship does not follow a one-size-fits-all format, judges awarded $300 to five projects in three different categories, Bradley said.
The winning products in the Most Creative category were the new-age multicolored vase made out of a beaker and test tubes by senior Kathryn Wolf and junior Kuntal Patel and a bathing suit made out of computer keys and plastic caps by sophomore Rachel Resnick.
Even though she originally intended to make jewelry, Resnick said she later decided constructing a bathing suit would be a more creative use of her materials.
Working from Wednesday to Sunday, she sewed together the bases of the suit with facemasks and then hot glued plastic caps to both pieces and Macintosh keyboard keys to the edges of the bottoms. To finish her design, she spray-painted the entire suit silver.
Two teams were also awarded the grand prize in the Most Social Value Generated category for their creations of the Distillagua 6000, a water distillation system capable of operating on solar power, and the Dorm Disposer, a residence hall composting station that uses student waste as food for worms.
Senior Rachel Fassbender and junior Sara Fischer came up with the idea of the Dorm Disposer because their goal was to assemble a product that possessed social value and could repurpose materials.
“We wanted a low-cost, high-impact product, so I offered the idea of a composting bin simply for the ease of construction and the widespread impact it could have on a community,” Fassbender said.
In the Most Value Generated category, judges awarded junior Kylie Reese for her creation of No Smear Gear, a product promising a smudge-free experience when painting fingernails.
The final award distributed was the People’s Choice Award of $100, which was based on the amount of online views a product received and which was given to sisters Bethany and Becca Ludwig, a senior and non-student, for their creation of The High Five-inator, a stationary mannequin hand mounted on a cardboard tube that allows users to always have a high five within reach.
