DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Heading into their senior year, engineering students at Embry-Riddle are asked to come up with an idea for their Capstone Senior Design class, a two-semester long course. For the ERAU student-athlete trio of Sophie Brundin (women's soccer), Izah Deang (volleyball) and Quinn Guzman (men's golf), that project resulted in prize-winning recognition at the 2020 Innovation Challenge sponsored by the Cairns Foundation.
 
The trio, all Mechanical Engineering majors, placed second with the SIQ Engineering ankle brace and won $5,000 plus a one-year pre-enrollment support at UCF Volusia County Business Incubator.
 
The idea for the ankle brace originated with Brundin who had experienced many ankle sprains throughout her career as a soccer player and had observed many of her teammates suffer the same plight. She also observed that many soccer players don't wear ankle braces because "they are so bulky, uncomfortable, and can get in the way of the soccer player's performance."
 
"Sophie approached me about the idea," Deang said. "We had worked well together in the past, plus being a volleyball player myself, I know how often sprains occur, even in my sport."
 
The duo pitched the idea to their senior design advisor, Dr. Victor Huayamave - ironically while Brundin was nursing an ankle sprain - and upon his approval, they began the search for an additional team member.
 
"We proposed the project to other students as one of the potential projects to work on," Deang said. "We had a few students interested in our project but we chose Quinn. He happened to be an athlete too, which we knew would make for a great teammate. But we also knew it would be challenging because of how demanding being an athlete is. We believe our cohesiveness, teamwork, communication, and hard work comes from embodying what it means to be an Embry-Riddle student-athlete in being the best student, person, and player."
 
In August 2019, SIQ Engineering was born. SIQ represents the initials of each of the team members' first names, and is an acronym for 'Support, Innovation and Quality'.
 
"We targeted soccer players to start off with this brace for a few reasons," Deang stated. "Soccer is the world's most popular sport, ankle sprains are the most common injury in soccer, and of course, our affiliation with Sophie playing soccer (we are her number one fans)."
 
The brace is 3D printed and designed to have a mesh geometric layout that is fully customizable to each user. The design prevents injury and if there was an injury to begin with, the brace supports rehabilitation by altering the stiffness of the brace. This brace is very thin (it fits in a soccer cleat, which is one of the tightest shoes in the market). It's very lightweight and allows natural range of motion by mimicking the human body's natural ankle mobility through this mesh design. The goal is to allow the athletes to perform at their maximum potential.
 
The team, which also won second place at the 2020 Embry-Riddle Discovery Day, applied for the Innovation Challenge at the beginning of the spring semester. The Cairns Foundation Innovation Challenge is an annual event that allows students from local colleges and universities to pitch their ideas to a group of potential investors and compete for cash prizes and ongoing business-incubator support. Brundin, Deang and Guzman submitted a detailed executive summary of their venture. The group was one of six finalists selected to do a five-minute virtual presentation followed by three minutes of fielding questions from the audience. Two hours later, the team was informed of the results.
 
Work on the ankle brace will include more research and gaining more technical data and will continue through the 2020-21 school year with help from the Office of Undergraduate Research Ignite Grant, which SIQ Engineering was also awarded in Spring 2020. Deang and Brundin both graduated in May, but the trio will continue to collaborate virtually with help from current undergraduates who are working on the project and are being guided by Guzman who is pursuing his master's degree at Embry-Riddle. The team is also pursuing a patent this semester.
 
"We are so honored and excited to continue this venture," Deang said. "All three of us are still actively involved even though we are physically separated nowadays. The incubator program will help commercialize our innovation and help grow our business in any way we need. Together, we are continuing to evolve the ankle brace and become successful with our company."