Students Learn the Art of Invention

Biomedical engineering sophomores Jessica Ashmead and Annicka Carter are getting a first-hand look at what it takes to invent and commercialize a medical device. They developed a surgical retractor with a battery-powered LED in a freshman bioengineering class at the University of Utah. They call it the OptiGuide.

So far, they have received national recognition for their efforts and started the patent process with hopes of eventually selling their device to hospitals across the country.

The young women started the project in spring 2011 while in a class called "Invent." Their assignment was to come up with a concept for a product, then spend the semester researching and developing their idea.

"After talking to local surgeons about the effectiveness of current lighting in an operating room, we discovered that there was room for improvement," said 20-year-old Carter. "Although the light intensity in the operating room is great, shadows occupy the actual surgical cavity, making it more difficult than expected for surgeons to see what they are doing. We decided to design a tool that would get the light as close to the surgical cavity as possible."

Their device only exists as a basic prototype, but they have filed a provisional patent application with help from the U's Technology Commercialization Office. A provisional patent application is a placeholder for a full patent application, which they know is much more difficult to put together.

"Next we are going to really research what the market wants and build an even better prototype so we can apply for a full patent next May," 20-year-old Ashmead said. "This experience has motivated me to want to invent devices that really make a difference in the world. I want to do well in school, so I can get a job that allows me to do that all the time."

Other similar medical retractors exist in the marketplace, so it is a big hurdle for OptiGuide to secure a full patent and market their device while proving how their retractor is unique. The team just started working with the Technology Commercialization Office to address this question, but they hope the OptiGuide's battery power supply and the position of the lights is enough to make their device distinct.

Professor Holly Holman taught the class where Ashmead and Carter first came up with their idea. Holman mentored the young women and encouraged them to enter the Collegiate Inventors Competition after noticing their dedication and the potential for the OptiGuide.

"They really stood out because they had the most detailed notebooks, and they made a prototype on their own during the semester, which was not part of any assignment for the class," said Holman, who accompanied the students at the award ceremony in Washington, D.C. and continues to mentor them. "It was always a treat when they came to ask me questions, because they were so enthusiastic about their idea."

The Collegiate Inventors Competition is organized by Invent Now, a national nonprofit organization, and it is open to university students from across the country. Eighty graduate and undergraduate teams entered the competition this year - of those, 11 became finalists. The OptiGuide team was different for being one of the few finalists to be composed of freshmen or sophomores.

LED Lamps and Luminaires Exhibit Strongest Growth Trends among all Lighting Technologies

Energy-efficient lighting technologies and the need to develop alternate technologies is gaining importance in India due to issues of energy deficiency, electrification of remote rural regions, and energy sustainability. Light Emitting Diode (LED) Lighting is considered the key emerging segment in the Indian lighting market, driven by the move towards energy-efficient lighting solutions.

According to Frost & Sullivan Research, the LED lighting market in India was USD 73.3 million in 2010 and will continue growing at a CAGR 45.53 percent till 2015. This market is expected to grow considerably in the future and the growth is attributed to short-term drivers namely, street light applications and the railway sector. Over 60 percent of the total demand in 2012 will be attributed to these two applications.

Frost & Sullivan is confident that LED lighting is expected to grow significantly in the future, replacing traditional lighting technologies, but its penetration largely depends on standardization, Government support, awareness, and affordability. Keeping in perspective the challenges faced by the LED lighting suppliers and end users, Frost & Sullivan's Automation & Electronics Practice recently hosted its 2nd Annual Executive Congress on LED Lighting in association with Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI).

According to Niju V, Deputy Director, Automation & Electronics Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South Asia & Middle East, “The excitement around LED Lighting applications is helping it to move towards newer user segments, thus expanding this market considerably.

The major challenges of absence of standards and lack of awareness are being mitigated by the efforts of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) and the LED industry, thereby facilitating its usage in hitherto low-usage application areas. Phenomenal growth of the market is expected to make viable commercial volumes of local manufacturing that shall aid in driving down the prices of the products significantly. As energy conservation initiatives gain more prominence, this industry is all set to acquire a star status in the next couple of years.

The LED lighting market also has its share of challenges. LED lighting installations require more complicated designs, spanning optical, thermal, and electronics domains. LED lamps continue to be quite expensive compared to conventional lamps; they rely on imports, as current economies of scale prevent indigenous manufacturing. Absence of uniform standards for different applications is also restraining LED adoption and is paving the way for sub-standard cheaper imports to flood the market.

The highly competitive factors affecting the Indian Lighting Market are price advantage and brand image. LEDs are garnering significant interest and playing a vital role in LEED certified buildings in India. The BEE is working with lighting associations to define standards, testing protocols, and certifying parameters for different lighting applications.

Star rating labels are being made mandatory for luminaires/lamps for indoor commercial and outdoor lighting applications. Government backing for green technologies and thereby its adoption in high-value applications like street lighting is helping LED Lighting make inroads in the Indian lighting industry. The increasing awareness of LED lighting benefits is also influencing its slow and steady penetration.

Save money this holiday with LED lights

The holiday season usually means consumers are spending extra cash. Yet this time of year could also mean extra savings.

According to Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU), homes that are lit with LED Christmas lights can save up to 90 percent on energy costs compared to those that are decorated with traditional lights.

"Of course, it depends on how much you use them," Patrice Lehermeirer of CSU said. "But yes, you will see some significant savings on your utilities bill."

Lehermeirer said it costs the average home about $3 to keep traditional Christmas lights on for five hours a day for 30 days. While that may not seem like much, she said if the home was to use LED lights instead it would only cost 30 cents.

However, some consumers are not sold on using LED bulbs because they usually cost more upfront. Yet experts at Home Depot in Colorado Springs said that is no longer the case.

"They used to be a bit more expensive, but with the advances in technology they are almost the same reasonable price as incandescent bulbs," Stephen Ford, a manager at the Academy Boulevard and Pikes Peak Avenue Home Depot, said.

Ford said LED light bulb sales have increased as well.

"We used to have to recommend LED lights to customers," he said, "now they come in requesting them on their own."

Experts also said it is a bright idea to switch to LED bulbs because they are safer to use.

"LED bulbs are very safe," Lehermeirer said. "They are more durable and aren't made of glass like some traditional bulbs. They don't heat up so you can touch them. It also reduces the risk of fire in your home."

Plus, there is no worry about one bulb outages ruining the entire strand. Lehermeirer said LED Christmas lights are expected to last at least 100 times longer than traditional bulbs.

Saturday,Colorado Springs Utilities will host a free light exchange at the conservation center located in the 2800 block of Mesa Road. From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., people can trade up to three strands of traditional lights and receive up to three strands of LED lights. The exchange will run on a first-come, first-served basis.

The first of these projects will study light flicker (quick, repeated changes in light intensity - light that appears to flutter and be unsteady) and, particularly, flicker from LED lighting on visual performance and brain function. The work will be led by the National Research Council of Canada's ("NRC") Institute for Research in Construction and managed by Dr. Jennifer Veitch, Senior Research Officer at the NRC. Other sponsors of the project include the Clean Energy Fund, a Canadian government program, and Osram-Sylvania.

"Recent work by a special committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers identified several knowledge gaps related to flicker that are critical to the successful use of LED lighting," said Dr. Veitch. "This new research is needed to fill in those gaps which can impact the health and behavior of people in spaces utilizing LED light sources."

The second project involves a study of how the color of the light source affects the impression of brightness in outdoor lighting situations. The work will be led by the Lighting Research Center ("LRC") at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Dr. John Bullough, Senior Research Scientist at the LRC, is managing the work.

Ford contract has Pride Signs roaring loudly

It’s a far cry from the company’s early days in the basement of his home in Paris, Ont. Hillis, president and majority owner, started Pride in 1986 after working as a franchise manager for College Pro Painters.

Technological advances such as photo shop software and vinyl-cutting plotters were just starting to come into vogue, making sign production cheaper and more sophisticated. The Peterborough native and York University business grad saw an opportunity.

“I started as a one-hour sign business before they really were prevalent,” says Hillis, 53.

From his Paris basement, he moved Pride to a business incubator in Brantford, then to Cambridge in 1988 to access this area’s more robust economy. Key early clients included Zehrs and East Side Marios.

In all, Pride has moved seven times, each time to gain more space. The last five moves have been within the city of Cambridge.

Home for the longest period, from 1999 to 2008, was a 54,000-square-foot plant Hillis put up on Holiday Inn Drive. “I thought it was my final resting area,” he says, but he lost ownership of the plant in a divorce.

Hillis was able to win the Ford contract, he says, by coming up with a creative solution to design, build and roll out the signs. The signs feature long-life LED lighting, a 10-year warranty and pylons made of flex-based aluminum rather than fibreglass.

The company has developed its own “tensioning system,” he says, to stretch aluminum as tight as a drum and create elaborate shapes like the bulldog on the Mack Truck sign. “We’re one of the few companies that can do the complicated stuff,” Hillis says.

As an established player, Pride doesn’t have to do a lot of marketing. It knows where the major accounts are and relies on referrals for the rest. Thanks to a referral, Pride was among a select group invited to bid on signs for Target after it acquired the Zellers chain, he notes.

Not everything Hillis has touched has turned to gold. Six years ago, he bought a sign company out of receivership in Rochester, NY. But the facility was too big and the market too depressed to make a go of it, so he closed it 18 months ago. “The market turned. It cost us millions to absorb that, but we got through it.”

Despite the U.S. setback, 10 per cent of Pride’s customers are based south of the border, including Applebees and Dollar Tree.

The switch from neon to LED lighting, and screen printing to digital are among the major technology changes he’s seen in his 25 years in the business.

On the sales side, he’s noticing clients are getting more aggressive about updating the look of their restaurants or stores. “Rebranding and re-imaging are important to keep the attention of the public, especially as they become younger.”

With the Ford contract and others keeping the company busy, one of his main challenges now is managing production. “But those are always fun challenges,” Hillis says.

Avoiding the CHP on the Autoweek America Adventure

"Damn revenuers," said Tommy Kendall. "They are draped all along the side of the road."

He spoke, of course, about the California Highway Patrol whose strategically positioned cars--and subsequent laser detection devices and Ka-band radar--were lighting up this two-lane south of Klamath Falls, Ore., less than two miles inside the state line.

It's a fact of economics, especially in California, a state that's running out of money faster than Greece: If you can generate cash from tourists driving along on a beautifully clear Saturday morning in the great hinterlands, do it.

Little did they know we were armed with the latest in electronic countermeasures, courtesy of Escort. So take that!

You may have read about this ingenious device. Called Escort Live, it goes beyond a single, high-powered detector you put in your car--it is an entirely holistic system of identifying, tagging, and recording the activities of laser-shooting gendarmes with a smart cord and smart-phone app. Network of drivers

The effectiveness of this system is what makes it brilliant. It is a network of like-minded people--and similarly prepared folks--with smart phones and smart cords systematically tracking those who want to separate you from your money. And while Escort can't say that it's about finding those who generate revenue for these small towns, I can: Little preservation of public safety takes place at dawn on a virtually abandoned two-lane highway.

Escort Live works at its peak when multiple systems identify and tag targets--which is why we outfitted Graham Rahal and his co-driver Chris Berry with a second unit on the Autoweek America Adventure. (Yeah, Graham, go out there ahead of us, we'll bring up the rear. No problem….). Each of our cars is outfitted with these prototype devices that will work great by themselves, but married to the smart cord and the dedicated iPhone app it gives you a dashboard of readouts from which to choose, and you feel empowered.

I've never been one to use a radar detector before. I've said the "crutch" of their function prevents me from being as attentive to what lies ahead as I should be. But no one can outrun laser. No one can see a quarter mile up the road and make out the sneering, hungry hunter in black and white. No one can, but Escort Live seemed to do just fine for us.

Didn't hurt that we were riding in a group of like-minded folks and they alerted us to a speed trap two miles south of the Shasta, Calif., I-5 bridge. There it was: a quick glint off of something out of place in the median, stretched out about a 1,000-1,500 feet ahead. What is that? It turned out to be a cop on a motorcycle spraying the infield and we "saw" him well in advance of any real visual identification… and there a mile down the road were two county locals, perched in bushes to the right on the highway, ready to pounce their prey, their big truck engines purring. You could almost see them salivating.