Issue date: 4/9/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Yanik Ruiz-Ramon/DP Staff Photographer Engineering students Warren Jackson and Bill Mather discuss their Radiosonde Recovery device, an economical equipment recovery system for objects at near-orbit altitudes. The invention won first place in the PennVention contest at Weiss Tech House on Friday. [Click to enlarge]

For Engineering junior Warren Jackson, a good idea has finally translated into $5,000 in cash.

Jackson's team, Radiosonde Recovery, secured first place at the Weiss Tech House's PennVention finals on Friday.

The team had developed a way to help research groups like the National Weather Services recover radiosondes more easily and economically.

Radiosondes, which are used to collect atmospheric data such as temperature, pressure and humidity, are usually launched to very high altitudes.

Once data have been collected, radiosondes parachute back to earth, where data are then collected and analyzed.

But the parachute's direction cannot be controlled, causing complications for recovery.

"It can land a couple of miles away," team member and Engineering Ph.D. candidate Kevin Galloway said.

His team's invention, an autonomous Global Positioning Service-based robot, solves this problem by steering it to a designated landing spot.

"Our next step is to get some researchers we can test [the prototype] with to show that it's feasible," Jackson said.

Innovative Protein Technologies secured second place - and $2,500 in cash - for inventing an automated solution for western blot system, a process used to identify individual proteins from within a complex mixture.

The western blot system is the only Food and Drug Administration-approved test for HIV.

However, "the current system is multi-step with a lot of manual intervention," team member and Biotechnology graduate student Noel Byrne said.

An automated approach that utilizes robotics and microfluidics could speed up the process, which can sometimes take a whole day.

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