By Samantha McClain

Managing Editor

Seven teams competed for first place with $2,000 and the advancement to the nationals in November 2023 on the line. Teams from NorthWest Arkansas Community College, the University of Arkansas, The Delta School, John Brown University, and locals in Arkansas, competed at NWACC Integrated Design Lab on Sept. 8 – 10.

The prompt given to the teams was “encouraging and motivating people to embrace the great outdoors and an active lifestyle,” according to make48.com. Each team had to choose one of the four scenarios to address a prompt:

For the novice: experiencing activities (such as hiking, canoeing, biking, etc.) can be intimidating or unsafe for first-time participants. The team that picked this prompt had to create a concept to make these activities safer.

Spirit of Competition: Create a racing concept and chase other opponents to motivate yourself. The Fan Experience: The team had to create a new concept to engage the audience by sharing the participant’s experience when watching and/or not being physically there.

Or the team could choose to do the prompt:

Fun for the Family: where the team had to find a fun way to encourage the whole family to use the trails with a combination of the great outdoors and virtual reality.

The Golden Eagles from John Brown University — Allyson Brown, James Smith, Colby Richardson and Shanteé Enitencio Quinn — won first place with a prototype incorporating a Plug-and-Play method to engage and connect families to nature while hiking.

Makineers from the Delta School — Andrew Podoll, Cameron Buckley, Haskel Schaffer and John Nielsen — won second place by creating a personalized geographic game. The game allows participants to get outside and connect through unique challenges while tracking personal progress.

Each team was required to create a physical prototype incorporating T-Mobile 5G connectivity (it was sponsoring the event), design a marketing video that ws one minute long and develop a concept phone app homepage. Each team had to explain their model to present to Chris Moore senior project manager from T-Mobile; Jeannette Balleza Collins, a member of the Northwest Arkansas Council; and Andrew Gibbs-Dabney, founder and CEO of Livsn Designs.

Several people in tech roles were there to assist the teams in building their prototypes. This included NWACC professors and faculty Ray Taylor, Director of Construction; Matt Meers, professor at NWACC; Elysia Contreras-Springer, NSF Grant Director; and Don Schultz, another professor at NWACC. Other companies in Arkansas also helped, including Adam Kittrell from Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub, Luis Rodriguez from Ultimaker, Simon Mused from the Scott Family Amazeum, and Ryan Patterson from ShopBot.

T-Mobile Techs incorporated technology into each team’s prototype, and they included Dave Reimer, Ethan Stiles, Mitul Kachhla, Jared Baumann, and Tex Teixeira.

In Photo: Andrew Podoll taking to Cameron Buckley, Haskel Schaffer, and John Nielsen

Photo Credit: Abigail Givens