Ictal Inhibitors wins Engineering Design Showcase

Ictal Inhibitors won the top prize in the George R. Brown Engineering Design Showcase held April 13 at Rice University’s Tudor Fieldhouse. The Excellence in Engineering Award brought with it a prize of $5,000.

The team developed an implantable neurostimulator that applies low-frequency stimulation to suppress seizures in people with epilepsy.

“Honestly, we had no idea,” said team member Erik Biegert. “This is the greatest thing that’s happened to us. We’ve gotten good feedback all year about how well we’ve been doing but this is better than we could have ever hoped.”

“There’s so many awesome teams here from so many different disciplines, and I know that it’s hard to compare those teams, so we’re really thankful and happy, and we’re excited to see this project move forward,” added Sarah Hooper, who said students are already lined up to continue development in future years.

The Ictal Inhibitors team, from left: Sarah Hooper, Erik Biegert, Justin Pensock, Marissa Levy, Xiaoran (Randy) Zhang and Luke Van der Spoel.

Other winners:

Willy Revolution Award for Outstanding Innovation ($5,000): Team ClotMeNot.

Willy Revolution Award for Outstanding Innovation ($2,500): Duncan Float Team.

Excellence in Capstone Engineering Design Award ($1,000): One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Feedstock.

Excellence in Capstone Engineering Design Award ($1,000): Breaking VAD.

Excellence in Independent, Multiyear or Club Engineering Design Award ($1,000): Smith Swim Squad.

Excellence in Freshman Engineering Design Award ($1,000): LRSCP.

Best Interdisciplinary Engineering Design Award ($750): Galveston Bay Foundation Headquarters.

Best Conceptual or Computational Modeling Engineering Design Award ($500): To The Heart.

Best Technology for Low-Resource Settings Design Award ($500): Colosto-Mates.

Best Energy-Related Engineering Design Award ($500): Petro Patrol.

Best Medical Device Technology Award ($500): Dexterous Lab.

Best Environment and Sustainability Engineering Design Award ($500): Tie: Untealeafable and Lettuce Turnip the Beet.

Best Gaming, Creative or Innovative Technology Award ($500): Hippopeutic.

Best Aerospace, Robotics or Transportation Technology Award ($500): Rice Eclipse.

People’s Choice Award ($500): ThrombosTH!S.

The annual public event put on by the George R. Brown School of Engineering and the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen features senior capstone design and other projects by Rice undergraduates. Read about all the participating teams at http://oedk.rice.edu/showcase.