Engineering students win big at statewide startup competition

Two Grand Valley students took first and third place at the GreenLight Michigan Business Model Competition, the conclusion of the statewide startup event series where participants pitch new business ideas to a panel of judges for a chance to win up to $50,000 in prizes. 

Eric VanMiddendorp, a graduate student majoring in mechanical engineering, is the grand prize winner and won $25,000 for the project, ETT Holder. Mark Harburg, a junior majoring in product design and manufacturing engineering, took third place overall and first place in the undergraduate category and won $7,000 for the project, Safety Sit. 

The event took place March 31 in East Lansing, where 24 groups were selected to provide a four-minute pitch in the final round of the competition. The pitch had to include a business plan with information about target audiences, budget and marketing efforts. 

VanMiddendorp, from Grand Rapids, developed the Endotracheal Tube Holder — or ETT Holder for short — as a graduate assistant at Spectrum Health Innovations and member of Spectrum-Community T2, an initiative aimed at increasing the success of biomedical commercialization opportunities in West Michigan. The device was created to provide additional structural support of breathing tubes connected to patients. 

“Patients often become panicked when they wake up in the hospital with a breathing tube down their throat, so they try to pull them out, which is dangerous, sometimes fatal, and hard to control,” said VanMiddendorp. 

The device is placed around the neck and on top of the head and connects to the breathing tube, which provides security. VanMiddendorp said he plans to use the money to convert his provisional patent to a full patent application, and fund prototypes and the final design.

Harburg, from Ann Arbor, worked with Franz Narowski, a business student at Michigan State, to develop Safety Sit. Representatives from Spectrum Health visited Harburg’s product design class and presented their problem. “Our job was to come up with a functional prototype and we did just that,” he said. 

The medical device gives full back and lateral support to patients who lack core balance and cannot sit up by themselves. Harburg said it was created to enable therapists and other medical staff to more easily work with patients. 

VanMiddendorp and Harburg will present their products and business plans at the MWest Challenge, a regional business plan competition, April 17 at Grand Valley.