North Columbus News

Eight teams of Ohio State students presented business ideas supporting space exploration during the 2024 Space BOSS pitch competition. The event took place on August 27 at The Ohio State University’s Student Entrepreneurs’ Center, home of the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship.

The Keenan Center is a campus-wide hub for developing student entrepreneurs and part of Ohio State’s Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge. The center administers the BOSS (Best of Student Startups) program.

Through the program, students participate in interactive workshops to develop their business startup ideas. The program culminates in a competition where students pitch their ideas to a panel of industry professionals, with winners receiving seed money to launch their startups.

The Space BOSS is an extension of the broader BOSS program that assists students in transforming ideas into sustainable businesses, said Cheryl Turnbull, the Keenan Center’s senior director.

“What we’re trying to do is broaden everybody’s thought process with regard to what technology is going to be needed to live in space,” she said. “It involves every single college, all different types of students.”

The winning student teams of this year’s Space BOSS competition are:

- Spaero Systems, $10,000

- Apiary Systems, $5,000

- Astraeus Paints, $5,000

The Spaero Systems team consists of Ian Harris, an aerospace engineering major, and Nikolas Harris from food business management. Spaero Systems invented a solution named SWAN to disinfect surfaces in spacecraft and prevent mold growth.

“SWAN is a lightweight, handheld reusable device that uses ambient air ionization plasma production to neutralize microbes such as bacteria and mold on surfaces,” Nikolas Harris said. “We use controlled electricity to kill harmful microbes.”

The members of the Apiary Systems team are Tom Cooney from aerospace engineering; Tyler Fenstermaker from mechanical engineering; Ritvik Rao from mechanical engineering; and Daniel Domingo Tcheurekdjian from mathematics.

Apiary Systems created software that allows individual robots to work together in large groups. The software will enable robots to more efficiently carry out missions in space, such as exploring and gathering samples from planets’ surfaces, Cooney said.

“Simply put, we allow robots to effectively collaborate,” he said. “This is an incredibly robust option, and it removes single points of failure from robotic missions.”

The Astraeus Paints team consists of Zachary Smith from aerospace engineering and Isaac Smith who attends Malone University.

Astraeus Paints has invented a type of paint that can be applied to a spacecraft’s interior. The paint changes color to indicate hazardous radiation inside the vessel. Market research found that the paint can assist NASA and other organizations with weight limitations for space flights by reducing the need for heavy radiation-detection equipment, Zachary Smith said.

“Weight isn’t the only thing to consider. We also need to consider space and volume,” he said. “Our paint takes up virtually nothing in the astronaut’s functional workspace as it can be applied to floors, doors or walls.”

The other participating teams were:

- Back to Sleep – Team member: Pedro Silberman (medicine major)

- QPX – Team members: Artur Leonel Machado Ulsenheimer (aerospace engineering); Alex Levi (environmental engineering); Elijah Paulman (computer science and engineering); Levend Karayaka (mechanical engineering); Caue De Morais Faria (aerospace engineering)

- SkyPrint – Team member: Aryan Verma (mechanical engineering)

- Solstice Outreach – Team member: Bella Roberts (natural history museum curation)

- TranscenSpace – Team members: Louis Miranda (engineering physics); Olivia Hamlett-Ho (electrical and computer engineering); Jake Dill (aerospace engineering)

The kickoff of the 2024-25 BOSS program will be held on September 25 at 7 p.m. at the Student Entrepreneurs’ Center. Participation in BOSS is encouraged for students interested in advancing to the President’s Buckeye Accelerator Boost Camp. For more information, visit the BOSS program’s website.