By Tribune Staff Reports
A Trine University student from Brownstown was part of a team that developed sports recording software for high schools and colleges that took first place in the third annual Innovation Challenge exposition at the Angola school.
Fletcher Davidson, a senior studying informatics, and three other students, Rachel Morris of Beech Grove, Tony Walterman of Greenwood and Brandon Hunt of Elkhart, developed Great Stats, which features more updated coding and an easy-to-use interface. Trine senior Luke Fimreite from McCordsville, sponsored Great Stats.
“We’ve been able to make an endgame for a consistent way to control access across all sports and a user-friendly graphical user interface rather than having to input little initials for every little single play that you wanted to put into the sport,” Morris said in a news release from the university.
“High scholars will have documented statistics for their sports career while in high school,” she said. “They can use this résumé to apply to colleges, and colleges can come and scope out potential players.”
The top prize in the technology category went to VibeSense, designed by Trine University freshmen Braden Hale, an electrical engineering major from Austin, and Animesh Kunwar, a biomedical engineering major from Santa Rosa, California.
VibeSense glasses use ultrasonic sensors to detect nearby objects. As the person wearing the glasses gets closer to an object, the glasses vibrate with increased frequency.
Hale said the inspiration for the idea came from a swimming coach who talked about swimming “blind” — without goggles — and from a 9-year-old girl in his hometown in Scott County who has visual impairments.
“Something like our product would go a long way in helping her live a more normal life,” Hale said. “We’d love to take it farther in the future. We’ve got great feedback from some of the judges and professors and different people we’ve talked to.”
The challenge, introduced in 2014, is open to students and residents of Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. Awards and scholarships are funded by a $100,000 gift from Fifth Third Bank, Greater Indiana.