PRIZES REWARD ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT

Members of the Drift-RMT team at the national Marine Energy Collegiate Competition.

A team specializing in engineering and business earned the $15,000 grand prize at the 36th Paul J. Holloway Prize Innovation to Market Competition — and a few weeks later, took home a national prize to boot.

Drift-RMT, a renewable ocean data collection device that uses wave motion for self-sustaining power, beat out six other teams of entrepreneurs.

Ocean surface drifters collect data for climate modeling, severe weather prediction and ocean navigation. Traditional drifters last about 18 months, but the Drift-RMT drifter is projected to last four to six years.

Soon after the Holloway competition in May, the Drift team won the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2024 Marine Energy Collegiate Competition, beating out other teams from colleges and universities across the country.

The team includes Cameron Vose ’24 (Paul College, entrepreneurial studies); William Moore ’24, Matthew Carlson ’24, Riley Desmarais ’24, Nate Hixon ’24, William Lindsay ’24 and Will Weete ’24 (College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, mechanical engineering); Jack Kearing ’24, Kara Wittmann ’25 and James Wood ’24 (College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, environmental engineering); and Allison Kelley ’24 and Kevin Moriarty ’24 (College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, ocean engineering).

Holloway’s second place went to the Trim-Able accessible nail trimmer, created by Kyle Dimick of Plymouth State University, and third went to Info-P, a urinary tract infection detection solution. The Info-P team featured UNH nursing students David Brown ’26, Sophie Grondin ’26, Cecilia Robison ’26 and Matthew Harry ’26 from the College of Health and Human Services.

See full coverage of the Paul J. Holloway Competition: unh.edu/unhtoday/2024/05/wave-innovation-drift-rmt-takes-home-top-holloway-prize