course and program

A Venture Capital Fund to Encourage Rapid Product Development in the Junior and Senior Clinic

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater - $30000.00

A renewal and extension of Rowan University funded Junior Engineering Clinic I and Junior Engineering Clinic II, this program supports a joint Rowan/NCIIA Venture Capital Fund. The Venture Capital Fund provides the opportunity for multidisciplinary E-Teams to propose, plan, and implement an original, semester-long product development enterprise. Student E-Teams involved in the program create a corporate structure to develop a prototype and write a business plan in one semester. Teams must form early, have an original idea, and be interdisciplinary in order to receive funding. Teams who do not receive NCIIA funding in the course join other teams or work with an industry or faculty sponsored project

BUS 100 - Business Perspectives

Clark Atlanta University - $6000.00

This course in technological entrepreneurship is part of a new program in technology entrepreneurship within the school of business. The course reaches over 200 freshmen and involves mentoring by senior students, seminars and visits to J&J plants. Business plans and presentations are the main deliverables. The course is well-supported by faculty and the administration, with plans proposed to fully fund it after its second year.

MME 498,499 Senior Design

Clarkson University - $2000.00

UAB's current senior design curriculum is based on mechanical engineering design teams solving industrial-based problems. The problems are formulated by industrial clients who must be satisfied with the final product offered by the design team. This NCIIA-funded program keeps the current client/team format of the design process while adding to selected teams a business component comprised of a marketing team member from the MBA program or Engineering Management program at the UAB School of Business and a patent attorney mentor from the local community.

Projects selected for E-Team design must develop a business plan, conduct market research, and perform a patent search. The design team incorporates the business plan and results from the market analysis and patent research into product design. The team submits the written reports on the business plan, market analysis, and patent research, demonstrates how these plans and studies were incorporated into the product design, and explains how the design was affected by these inputs. The team also builds a prototype of the product and provides test information demonstrating its effectiveness in meeting the design goals

Senior IPD Project Course

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - $15000.00

Proposal requests renewal of funding for E-Teams in Lehigh IPD program. Program is multi-disciplinary design and business development program run in conjunction with the Ben Franklin Incubator. Funding would enable 2 teams to develop prototypes and marketing & business plans. Teams are well supported and the IPD courses offer very good support for E-Teams including lectures and connection with industry and business mentors and access to the incubator center for successful projects.ITEM $ Requested $ Approved E-Team Prototype Development $4,000 $3,000 Technical services 2,000 1,000 Support services 4,000 1,000 Summer stipends for students 2,600 0 Equip 1,000 1,000 Supplies 200 200 Travel 200 200 Patent & legal 200 200 Market analysis 200 200 Business plan development 200 200 Posters, presentation mtls and reports 400 200 $15,000 $7,200 The proposal is very well rounded and likely to produce good E-Teams. The funding requested is quite high although the teams work on projects which are often quite complex and involve elaborate prototyping. Recommend funding at $7200 based on comparable expenses in the programs with the removal of internship expenses. Encourage applications for advanced support for summer fundingFund at reduced level of $7200.

Introduction to Engineering Design and Follow-on Courses

Kettering University - $9500.00

This grant supports the creation of an E-Team "clinic" for continuing projects from an existing Introduction to Engineering Design course or other sources. Funding supports prototyping, patenting, market research, and further product development. The technically oriented teams of engineering majors each sell their ideas to business students from the management school business planning class. Students work with mentors to write business plans as they refine their products. Each semester, three to five teams work on patenting and commercializing their products. The students work on the projects on a non-credit basis, register for independent study credit, or complete projects for other classes

Mechanical Design/ Digital Systems Design

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - $12300.00

This project used NCIIA funding to create an E-Team course at Howard University, entitled Mechanical Design / Digital Systems Design. The course is a two-semester design sequence incorporating electrical engineering and mechanical engineering students into E-Team projects. Students select topics, research market potential, write a feasibility plan, and build prototypes. The curriculum includes information on intellectual property (IP), lectures on business topics and a competition between teams to create the projects worth of applying for Advanced E-Team grants.

Patent Evaluation and Entrepreneurship

Swarthmore College - $7100.00

This course creates interdisciplinary E-Teams that evaluate the commerical potential of on-the-shelf, patented, university-owned technologies. The curriculum focus is on business planning and creation; students develop prototypes and pursue commercialization if the ideas are feasible. The central feature of the course is the use of E-Teams to move patented but unexploited technologies into the marketplace.

Smart Product Design

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - $13500.00

For this project, Dartmouth College used NCIIA funds to purchase rapid prototyping equipment, leading to E-Teams’ development of mechatronic, or “smart product” ideas. The grant funds supported approximately sixty students, some working independently on E-Team projects, and some first and second-year students enrolled in ENGS 21: Introduction to Engineering. All students were required to define a problem, brainstorm for a solution, test and prototype a design solution, and propose a commercialization strategy.

Invention and Entrepreneuring

University of Virginia-Main Campus - $3500.00

This course is for students who have taken a course in creative problem solving to apply what they have learned by inventing or developing a product or a process. In addition, students learn additional principles of entrepreneurship and hone their teamwork skills in E-Teams. The course is team taught by one professor in mechanical engineering and one from business management. Both have taught creative problem solving and model the process throughout the development of this interdisciplinary pilot course. The course is a one hour seminar and three hours of lab per week for student E-Teams to work on prototyping and patent searching. Students are drawn from engineering, computer science, and engineering management. Topics covered in the course include teamwork and communication, creative problem solving, patenting, entrepreneurship, and marketing. The course will teach an inventing process including problem identification, idea generation, feasibility study, design and specifications, and prototype construction and testing

Technological Innovation for a New Agriculture: Redefining the Tractor

Columbia university

This project supports a course focusing on the development of innovations in organic, tractor-based agricultural cultivation. E-Teams work to create a tractor that runs on vegetable fuels and uses non-chemical weed control devices and implements. E-Teams also pursue innovative approaches to problems with diesel fueled tractors.