On August 12-14th, I led a team of four in a 48 hour invention competition called Make48. Our team name was the Stainless Steel Badgers and was composed of all former or current rotational engineers at Sub-Zero Group Inc. We are all graduates of the Mechanical Engineering program at UW-Madison. This was one of four regional events organized by Make48 in 2021 and the first one in the Madison area. The category of this competition was “Outdoor Play”.

Make48 Overview:

8 Teams of 2-4 have 48 hours to design a product, build a prototype and prepare a pitch for a panel of judges (like Shark Tank)

The design challenge and judging criteria was decided by the Man Sponsor of the event, Midwest Prototyping. The theme of the challenge was “Outdoor Play”. The event took place at The Bodgery, a makerspace on the East Side of Madison. Many volunteers from Make48, The Bodgery, and guest Tool Technicians assisted the teams with their projects. Each team received $200 for materials. The teams had an opportunity to consult with patent attorneys and a focus group regarding their ideas. Teams had access to all the tools at The Bodgery, however all machines had to be operated by the Tool Techs for safety and fairness reasons

The 1st place team receives a trophy, has the IP rights to their invention purchased for $2,000 and moves onto the national competition in March of 2022. The 2nd place team also moves onto the national competitions. A 3rd award, the Kid’s Choice Award, was given to the team who’s project was chosen as the favorite of a panel of four kids

Any team’s IP may be purchased by the Main Sponsor for $2,000

All IP and prototypes were held for a period of 90 days following the event

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Results

We won the Kid’s Choice award! Although our concept followed the grading criteria as best as we could, the main sponsor and ultimately judges chose a concept they were more likely to pursue themselves. Their main reasons being “unrealistic price” (too much profit margin) and “more for kids” (despite the target being all audiences). Since we get to keep our IP, we plan on bringing our invention to market ourselves via crowdfunding or selling to an existing company.

Since the 2nd place team could not make it to the national competition, we were invited to compete in their place as the runner ups of the Madison competition. In March 2022 we will be competing again for a shot at $10,000 in Wichita, KS for Season 5 of Make48 to be aired on PBS in late 2022.