The “Change the World Challenge” was started at RPI in 2005 by alumnus Sean O’Sullivan ’85 and the contest was intended to inspire ideas among students about how to improve the human condition through engineering technologies.

Students may work as individuals or teams on their ideas, and select a topic from a list of challenges that face the world. Students must offer an innovative and realistic solution to the problem that they chose.

The ideas are judged on both novelty and feasibility, and up to 10 may be selected for the award. Three teams of students were chosen this year, each winning an award of $100 and an honorable mention.

One team of students developed a wireless heart monitoring system which could alert ground crews in the event of a fireman suffering a heart attack. This team consisted of Laura Beyer ’07, Joanna Gibson ’07, Chad Munkres ’07, Alex Stroshane ’07, and Cynthia Tang ’07. Because a large number of deaths among firemen are due to overexertion in the line of duty, the team developed a solution to this problem by proposing a shirt that is outfitted with three removable electrocardiograph electrodes, which transmit live recorded data to a second product, which is similar to a two-way radio.

Another of the winning teams developed a novel design for the bottles used to transport water to citizens in developing nations, which would allow for empty bottles to be combined to construct furniture or shelter areas. “The reason we thought of this as a useful product was because one day we were sitting around in a dorm room and we realized that nearly every dorm room has at least one case of water,” said Peter Zummo ’09. “By taking those bottles and turning them into something that an average person with minimal mechanical ability can use to construct, say, a desk, chair, or bookshelf, we would decrease the amount of waste entering our landfills and save energy as compared to the energy cost of recycling a bottle.” This team consisted of Sara Finkbeiner ’09, Emmeline Gilbert ’09, Matthew Naples ’08, and Zummo. The team designed a type of “Lego” bottle that can be joined with other bottles and can support a load.

The last team was made up of students Shannon Burns ’08, Kevin O’Brien ’08, Daniel Rodrigo ’09, Svetlana Tancheva ’09, Anthony Travaglini ’09, Mark White ’09, and Zummo. This team developed a mechanical or solar-powered device to split cocoa pods in Ghana, which is the world’s largest producer of cocoa. “While doing research for this, we discovered disturbing statistics regarding the use of child labor and the injuries these children sustained while splitting cocoa pods,” said Zummo. “Our design uses simple human weight in order to safely split cocoa pods and then separate the pods into waste and the viable cocoa beans.”

Winners of the Fall 2006 and the Spring 2007 competitions will be recognized during a special event at the end of the school year, additional prizes will be given to students whose ideas are deemed to be among the best.