UI student shares grand prize, nets $27,000

CHICAGO – A University of Illinois senior is $27,000 richer today, having shared the grand prize in the 2009 Collegiate Inventors Competition.

Stephen Diebold, 21, of Rolling Meadows was one of two grand prize winners named Tuesday. He was cited for his invention of the Drop Point, a device that helps quadriplegics with everyday tasks.

"I was the youngest and only undergraduate to have won the grand prize," Diebold said Wednesday before flying back to Champaign.

During the awards ceremony Tuesday night at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, Diebold picked up a $2,000 check, as did the other eight finalists. It was then announced that a team from Dartmouth had won the top undergraduate prize.

"At that point, I thought, 'Oh, well, there went my chance. I can relax now,'" Diebold said. "I got to enjoy the rest of the show without shakes or worries."

But after a student from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won the top graduate prize, the master of ceremonies said that for the first time ever, there had been a tie for grand prize.

"I began to think, 'What if? What if? That would be amazing!'" Diebold said. "I got on edge a little."

The first grand-prize winner was Harris Wang of Harvard Medical School. The audience was then told the other grand prize was won by an undergraduate, a first.

When Diebold's name was announced, "it took me a while to stand up." He received a gold medal and a check for $25,000, then made an acceptance speech, mindful that professional inventors and future inventors were in the audience.

He told them to remember the people for whom they design their products.

"For you, it may be only a tool, but for other people, it could be a way of life," he said.

The Drop Point made improvements on pointing sticks quadriplegics use for tasks such as typing, operating cell phones and manipulating objects. Some sticks are held by the teeth; other are mounted on the user's head.

Using Diebold's invention, quadriplegics can use the pointing stick by simply shrugging their chin. The stick is attached to a cup on a strap hung around the neck.

Sitting in the front row with Diebold was Jonathon Ko, the former UI law student for whom Diebold designed the device. Diebold, an industrial design major, came up with the idea in a design class where students were paired with people with disabilities.

Diebold said he's not quite sure what he'll do with the prize money.

"Now I have funding to make some prototypes," he said. But he added he'll probably end up investing most of it.

Bridgestone was a sponsor of the event, and each finalist received four Bridgestone tires.

A Bridgestone representative told Diebold after the ceremony that two years earlier, he had been left quadriplegic for about a year, after surgery that went awry.

"Just like that, his world changed, and I could see how limited he felt from this disability. He said he completely understood where I was coming from," Diebold said.

Diebold noted he was the only contestant from the field of fine and applied arts.

"Everyone else was in some form of engineering," he said.

He added he was amazed by all the contestants' inventions – including synthetic HDL (the "good" cholesterol) developed by two students from Northwestern.

Diebold missed three days of classes while taking part in the competition and has a lot of catching up to do. But he's pretty happy about his situation.

"There is no problem when you win $27,000," he said.

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