Award Data

In previous R&D, the developers created codeSpark Academy, a game that employs a visual and block-based approach with puzzles to teach coding skills to students ages 5 to 9 years old. codeSpark Academy is in widespread use in and out of schools around the world. In this project, the developers will expand storytelling creative tools within the existing game. The pretend-play scenarios will include ...

The game, which is used by children alone or in tandem with a special education practitioner or caregiver, supports children in understanding and expressing musical patterns, and in learning to sing songs before speaking. This project will extend the existing version by developing a prototype that includes additional songs for increased speech-language learning outcomes, an animated onscreen singe ...

The team will develop a new component of the AR app, a prototype with computer vision and recognition software to present real-world phenomena that are ordinarily not observable in nature. In Phase I, the research team will create a magnetism module would show students the invisible magnetic field all around them and how it interacts with magnetic objects. At the end of Phase I, in a pilot study w ...

The team will develop a prototype of an immersive virtual reality experience for high school students to learn about the scientific processes and the biology of plants. The prototype will be designed to be multi-player where groups of students collaboratively conduct open-ended cross-breeding experiments, record images to export to reports, track and analyze data, and draw conclusions. At the end ...

Due to increasing concerns over long-term effects of PFOS and PFAS on human body, health based values were set by regulatory authoritative bodies for drinking water standard. Currenty lab-based PFOA and PFOS water tests cost $200-$300 per sample with a turnaround time of 2-3 weeks. In this program, 2W iTech LLC proposes to develop a low-cost fieldable sensing technology for detecting trace amounts ...

This proposal addresses the need for a pre-treatment technology to remove per- and poly- fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from industrial wastewaters. Phase I involves the design, build and testing of a novel technology to remove PFAS from water, termed the Aqueous Electrostatic Concentrator (AEC). This technology will be tested as an electrical bench-scale device that concentrates PFAS through selec ...

Stormwater management is a growing challenge across the country. Water quality standards are becoming increasingly strict as new regulations are developed at the state level. Meanwhile, changing land use and greater urbanization make meeting these standards even more difficult. Currently, stormwater samples are collected in the field and analyzed in the lab, a process which is time-consuming, cost ...

Current petroleum-derived-plastics contain additives such as phthalates or bisphenolA that are harmful to human health and the environment. Thus, it’s critical to replace such toxic non-biodegradable plastics with biodegradable bioplastics. To meet bioplastics production need, Altex, and Texas A&M University (TAMU) have teamed up to utilize renewable biomass, such as forest residue, agricultural ...

Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are used in food packaging, as coatings for cloth (e.g. Scotchgard), firefighting foams, electronics, and industrial and automotive components. Being perfluorinated species, they are engineered to breakdown slowly (half-life >92 years in water), and thus persist for very long times. Their high water-solubility makes them especially dangerous, and much like perchlo ...

Chemical warfare agents such as the lethal nerve agent soman are a major source of risk to military personnel. Currently, pyridostigmine bromide (PB) is the only FDA-approved pretreatment to counteract the effects of soman. The rationale behind PB administration is that it acts as a “temporary” inhibitor of AChE. This precludes nerve agents from irreversible inactivation of AChE, thereby mitig ...