2015 US Imagine Cup National Finalists

We are excited to the 2015 US Imagine Cup National Finalists! The 12 teams will compete in San Francisco on April 23rd, for a chance to represent the US in the World Imagine Cup Semi-Finals. These students have already moved through two rounds of competition to land a coveted spot in the US Finals. One winning team will be selected in each of the following categories: Games, Innovation, and World Citizenship.  

2015 US Imagine Cup National Finalists
Innovation category
			WiMi creates a safer driving experience by moving critical information from the dashboard to a gesture-controlled Head-Up Display. It enables the driver or passenger to safely control what they observe using intuitive air taps and pointers. WiMi was invented by Andrew Surratt, Grace Noh, Jenny Luo, and Vik Parthiban at The University of Texas at Austin. The team is currently developing the gesture controls, graphical user interface, embedded system, and optics.
			StudyTree is the first mobile application that connects students for in person, peer tutoring on college campuses. Using ground breaking, real-time Microsoft technologies, StudyTree  is the most convenient tutoring solution for students by providing them with  tutors on demand. The Student-to-Student Solution enables students to either  make money as a tutor or save money as a student. The University Platform enables universities to better manage their own tutors on a budget. Team members are Ethan Keiser, Robyn Freedman, and Phuoc Phan.
			NullSpace brings touch feedback to virtual reality. The system consists of a full upper body suit, including  gloves, embedded with vibrating motors, allows you to feel virtual objects,  including digital sculptures, online sports opponents, or the avatars of family and friends. NullSpace also includes a flexible SDK for developers. The team originates from the University of Rochester and is directed by founders Morgan Sinko, Lucian Copeland, Jordan Brooks and Kian Jones.
			IntelliSys had created a smarter and more personal text editor with sense is coming. Introducing WordSense. WordSense combines the power of search engines such as Bing to provide writers responsive word completion, prediction, query answering, mathematical calculation right inside text editor – allowing a more streamlined writing experience that emphasizes on the flow of the article rather than minute details. Team members are Yao Chu, Liang Luo, Naicheng Zhang, and Shi Cheng.
Games category
			Dan & Gary Games is an artist-programmer duo making their first trek through the wild world of game development with Super Daryl Deluxe. The game, which allows players to construct their own combat system and save the world from vile self-help authors, has allowed the two to explore and invent their own unique brand of storytelling through award-winning visuals and fluid, immersive gameplay. Developers Dan Plate and Gary Porter are both students at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
			GoodbyeWorld Games is a gang of game developers from University of Southern California passionate about expanding the possibilities of our medium. We are all people who consider video games to be in a stage of enormous and fascinating growth that gives every great idea the chance to touch millions of people and create new ways of understanding games. We seek to take advantage of this opportunity by experimenting with what games are capable of and discovering the limits of new and barely used hardware, software, and ideas. Our debut game, Close Your, is an award winning short narrative driven experience that helps the player become closer to mortality. The game uses facial detection in a unique way to use the player closing their eyes as an input for the game. GoodbyeWorld Games was founded by Will Hellwarth, with team members Zach Suite and Keenan Mosimann.
			Zoogie Roll from Skybit Studios.Battle against your friends or in competitive tournaments to collect every Zoogi! Duke it out in a diverse cast of game modes and floating island arenas. Race to collect "Sky Bits" in Ringer Royal, slam your opponents off the island in Rumble, and dominate the Zootball Field by knocking about a giant soccer ball. Team members are Tyler Swensen, Evan James, John Montgomery, Igor Esteves de Oliveira.
			Team Huebotics presents HueBots, an new puzzle game for Windows PCs and Windows  Phones. Using a team of adorable multi-colored HueBots, players explore seventy challenging mazes. Each HueBot interacts with matching colored items in each maze, making for a game that is easy to learn but hard to master! Players can also create their own levels to challenge their friends. Founders are Michael Leung, Tad Cordle, Erika Schumacher and Jasmine Martin, all from University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
World Citizenship category
			EyeCYou is an assistive technology for the visually impaired using sound to convey human presence to the user and with appropriate machine learning algorithms to provide suitable number of descriptions of the person’s physical appearance. It is a stepping stone towards the inception of giving a ray a light to the visually impaired. Founders are Oluwatosin Oluwadare and Mohammed Azmat Qureshi, both are student at University of Texas, Arlington.
			Abuse Geeks. Domestic abuse is a worldwide problem and twenty five percent of all women will be victims of abuse in some way. Abused Geeks has created Cal-123 to aid victims of abuse in their struggle to leave their abusive situations by giving them the tools to safely and securely document the abuse, plain an exit strategy, and find aid quickly when needed. Abused Geeks Founders, Timothy Henneberry and David Breeding are students of University of Arkansas Little Rock.
			Centauri’s Viracomp is a bioinformatics workbench that focuses on analyzing the molecular evolution of viruses. The main feature and  purpose of ViraComp is its simulation system, where we use phylogenetics and  statistics to model and simulate the molecular evolution of viruses. Our vision is to continue to create open-source and free solutions for the  bioinformatics community, while also providing software and support for education at all levels of learning. Team members are Bin Ru (Sophie) He, Angela Chen, Jingqi Zhou and Ryan Cooper.
			Project Mercury. By using a combination of motion detecting-cameras, infrared sensors, andcommunication technologies this invention can remotely and non-intrusively detect a person who may be unconscious or incapacitated and in need of medical attention by analyzing heart rate, blood pressure, and velocity at which one may fall; if any irregularities are detected, emergency responders are alerted. Our teamutilizes the Kinect v2 for a robust, non-intrusive system of protection and safety. Team members are Brandon Peck, Ji-Seok Lee, and Evan Cater.