The challenge is on.
Innovation Competitions keep things lively around the School of Engineering! Each quarter, student teams put their entrepreneurial mindsets and creative problem-solving skills to the test vying for cash prizes. Contests involve local industrial partners (BMW, Intel, nVIDIA, NASA, to name a few), alumni, and a talented group of innovators and entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley.
2023 Maker Product Design Challenge - $5,000 Grand Prize!
Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to form a student team and design a compelling gift item for donors to SCU’s $1 billion “Innovating with a Mission” comprehensive fundraising campaign as it nears completion in 2024. This challenge requires design teams to conceive, pitch, produce and sell 20 units of their product. The competition has two phases. All teams will submit a Phase A design proposal. The top three teams will be selected to move to Phase B, which consists of production and sales. The grand prize is $5,000. In addition, one or more teams may win a contract to produce several hundred items for actual gifts to donors. If you are looking for a teammate, please contact Michelle Maranowski.
Announcements & Updates:
Curious about the Maker Product Design Challenge? Want to know what makes a successful gift for donors? What kind of attributes ought your design have? Here are three office hours meetings where you can come and ask all the questions of Kelly De Leon-Lopez, Associate Director of Donor Relations. Kelly is one of the Design Challenge judges!
Registration Deadline: Monday, March 13 (see Competition Description document)
The top three teams in the Big Bash Maker Challenge - a phone stand, virtual reality goggles, and a toy ladder - made their items in the Maker Lab to put on sale in the campus bookstore.
Knightscope Honorable Mention team poses with their mock-up robot
Knightscope Autonomous Machine Entrepreneurial Mindset Challenge teams created a two-minute storyboard video of their idea for application of multiple K5 robots.
Students from the Santa Clara Innovation & Design club won the Big Bash Maker Challenge where they designed SCU spirit items, manufactured them in the Maker Lab, and sold them in the campus bookstore.
Participants from the Fall 2018 Podium Sports Technology Challenge
2019 Maker Challenge Winners- Designed and made 20 spirit items in the Maker Lab that were then sold in the campus bookstore.
Three winning products of past Maker Product Design Challenges.