Eagle Works
Maker Challenge
The 2019-2020 year kicked off with the Maker Challenge!
The Eagle Works Maker Challenge was the first Innovation & Entrepreneurship event of the year, as well as the first of many opportunities for student and faculty involvement with Rural Reimagined, Tennessee Tech’s Grand Challenge. The event hosted 44 students ranging from over 22 different majors to develop and prototype an idea to solve a rural problem. The winning team received a $1,000 scholarship.
The innovative winners of the scholarship were Matthew Caher, Jonathan Escue and Ian Nail from the engineering and math departments with their idea to transport produce to rural areas with a drone.
All of the participating students’ ideas were creative and innovative, ranging from healthcare to opioid problems to vertical farming.
The challenge as presented to participants was as follows:
Rural areas are affected by a number of challenges. Some examples are:
- Low to no access to:
- Grocery stores and fresh produce
- Quality physical and mental health care
- High speed internet
- Transportation
They are also affected by:
- Substance abuse and opioid epidemic
- Low inclusion and diversity
- Lack of nutrition
- Lack of childcare
Your challenge is to create an innovative solution to solve one or more of these problems – or a different rural challenge that we haven’t listed. Your only limitation is your creativity! We have various low resolution prototyping materials, as well as large notepads and markers – use whatever supplies you want to develop your idea. This could be a device, an app, a process, a website, a building – whatever you think is a good solution!
You have about two and a half hours to:
- Form your team (you may also work alone, but remember, more people=more ideas!)
- Design and create a representation of your solution
- At 8 p.m. all teams will present to judges
- The winning team will get a $1000 scholarship!!!
