Directors of the third annual Wiscontrepreneur Challenge awarded cash prizes to four creative, unique student projects.
""The students had 100 hours to create something they thought would be creative or something that would help society,"" Douglas Bradley, assistant director of Marketing and Communications for the Office of Corporate Relations, said.
The UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations sponsored the challenge with support from the Kauffman Foundation.
Close to 200 students participated Feb. 18-22, turning in a total of 63 project entries. Students in Jeanan Yasiri's ""Entrepreneurialism in Society"" class submitted approximately half of the contest's entries. Last year's challenge received only 17 entries.
Students had four days to create their projects from $15 of surplus material from the Surplus With a Purpose shop, which was open in the basement of Sellery Hall for the first two days of the contest.
Participants submitted their projects to the Office of Corporate Relations and posted them to websites like YouTube and Flickr.
In the first 48 hours, contest judges awarded the ""People's Choice Award"" for $100 to the post with the most views. Sophomore Alex Zielske and freshman Chris Wickler won the award with 654 views for their ""drunk tank,"" which can hold ""annoying"" college partiers.
Judges awarded $300 to projects in three other categories.
""Most Creative"" went to Jessica Cabrera's dress, made out of air filters, yellow wire, vacuum filters and styrofoam peanuts.
""I love retail and I love ‘Project Runway.' I was inspired just by some air filters,"" Cabrera said in a statement.
Robert Chumanov and Peter Kuhn won ""Most Social Value Generated"" for their system for water purification and sewage treatment.
Joe Powell and Taylor Braun won ""Most Value Generated"" for creating a home for plants and fish out of test tubes.
""There was great participation. It's what you'd expect from our students. We've got very bright, creative and entrepreneurial students, and they come from all disciplines,"" Bradley said.
Students can view all entries at http://challenge.wiscontrepreneur.org/project/peoples_choice.
