By Steve Smith
Reno Gazette-Journal
Saturday April 29th, 2000

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An automated device to test water clarity. Electronic road flares. A “pet rock” that can test how fast streams and creeks are flowing. A remote-controlled car jack.

Those were just a few of the inventions on display Friday, designed by a University of Nevada, Reno class that combines entrepreneurship and innovation.

The senior-level class, Engineering Design and Analysis, allows students 15 weeks to create a business based on a developing technology and try to turn a profit with their invention.

The “E-Teams” created businesses, worked within a design budget, ordered supplies, consulted with industry sources and prepared a marketing plan for the four-credit UNR course.

The class received support from the Lemelson Foundation and was featured at an exhibit this spring at a Smithsonian Institution museum.

“It’s a good way for us to put all the things we’ve learned into practice,” said Matt Maxwell, whose team created an automated tool to analyze the water in Lake Tahoe. “It’s a challenge, but it’s worth it to see the end result.”

Many students worked on projects with practical uses, which they displayed Friday at UNR’s Engineering Laboratory Center. Jacked Inc. conjured up a device that allows stranded motorists to effortlessly jack up their cars with the flick of a switch.

“It’ll get your tire off the ground in about a minute or so,” team member Jae Yi said as he flicked a red button on a remote-control panel. Instantly, the hydraulic jack whirred to life and began to push upward. “It beats getting all dirty and cranking on a manual jack.”

FLAIR proudly displayed a series of flashing red strobe lights, which can be plugged into a car’s cigarette lighter and used as road flares.

“A lot of law enforcers say they don’t want to use road flares, particularly if they’re near sagebrush or at an accident where there’s been some type of spill,” Dan Muller said. “This eliminates that risk.”

Meanwhile, FlowTronics unveiled the IntelliRock — a boxlike sensor inserted in the middle of a large rock that can gather flow measurements in streams and creeks.

The rock is dropped into the bed of a moving body of water and is able to accurately gauge the crest of rivers, streams and creeks, UNR senior Kevin Gum said.
“We wanted to make sure it looked like it belonged there, so we put it inside a rock,” Gum said.

The class is a way to put real-world experience into the senior design class, rather than adhere to a textbook approach, students say.

“It’s not just words and numbers in a book,” Yi said. “This is applying everything we’ve learned. It’s reality.”