Another year of the Analog Design Contest Engibous Summit is in the books, and what a great few days it was to have all our invited students and educators come to Dallas. We apologize for the Texas heat, but hopefully they won’t hold that against us!

We made sure their time spent here was educational and fun as well as an opportunity to network – not only with TIers but also among themselves.

The event kicked off with a dinner reception and awards presentation at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, where Steve Parks – TI vice president for Analog marketing – provided the keynote address. All of the students, representing the top 12 teams from this year’s Analog Design Contest, were honored for their winning projects.

Monday was a busy day for everyone, beginning with a Tech Forum that showcased demonstrations of the latest products and technologies that TI offers. Students were then treated to a tour of our DLP facilities- saw demonstrations of the latest DLP technology and hear fun stories of TI’s partnership with Hollywood!  The students then presented their project posters and impressed the TI employees at the Dallas headquarters. Educators also had a busy day of workshops, paper presentations and a tour of our innovative Kilby Labs facility. They all convened later that night at Top Golf to put their long-drive skills to the test.

Tuesday was a significant highlight, as well, with the Engibous Prize awards ceremony. Mark Zack, vice president for semiconductor at Digi-Key, addressed the participants before Brian Crutcher, senior vice president and general manager of TI’s Analog businesses, announced the winners.

Rice University in Houston is home to the first-place Engibous Prize winners for the second consecutive year. Five students – Richard Latimer, Adam Samaniego, Kevin Beale, George Chen and Minhee Park – won the top honor (and $10,000 award) given during TI’s annual Analog Design Contest for their project entitled “mobileVision. “

More than 310 million people worldwide suffer from diseases of the eye. Roughly 90 percent of them live in developing countries, and nearly all of their diseases can be prevented with early detection.

Using the hand-held device the team created, untrained individuals will be able to perform low-cost eye checkups and take snapshots of a retina outside of a clinical environment. As an LED light and various optics illuminate the retina, pictures can then be transmitted via an Internet protocol camera to a smartphone for an ophthalmologist for review remotely.

“This definitely proves to us that we’re doing meaningful work,” Samaniego said. “All along, we wanted to do something that would be used to help people. And we feel like we’ve set the groundwork to do just that.”

 

Said Gene Frantz, a principal fellow at TI who also served as a judge of the competition:  “What caught our attention is that this is a novel idea that meets a defined need for a great number of people around the world. Meet that need, and you will right away increase their quality of life.”

 Three other projects also earned accolades at Tuesday’s awards ceremony:

  • A team from Oregon State received second place and $7,500 for their design of a wireless-control device that mimics a computer mouse.
  • A duo from the University of Toronto earned third place and $5,000 for their design of a device that collected environmental data through sensors and wirelessly transmitted that data to a nearby base station.
  • A group from the University of Central Florida earned the People’s Choice prize and $1,000 for its work on an automated metal-detecting vehicle.

We certainly appreciate everyone making the trek to Dallas for another successful Analog Design Contest Engibous Summit – we’re already thinking about what we can do to make the 2013 version even better! Be sure to check back soon for more in-depth coverage of some of the winning projects as well as for information on how you can enter the 2012-13 contest.