It’s really late on a Saturday night. You’ve been out with friends, and now you’re hungry. You look around to the local food joints – Sweeto Burrito’s got a line out the door. Drunken Noodle offers you an hour wait time. Sketchy hot dog stand on the corner is closing up shop. What to do?!

This is exactly what NDSU students Ryan Connor and Jen Regimbal want to solve with Snappy N’ J: a gourmet, high-speed delivery of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made in two minutes or less, for two dollars a sandwich. As soon as you order, timer goes on. If it takes longer than 2 minutes to get you your sandwich, you get a coupon for 2 free sandwiches the next time around.            Snappy N’ J was voted as the top idea of the night by the audience, but it was just one of the many creative, problem-solving ideas heard at the NDSU Innovation Pitch last Thursday, October 16. The event was “a smash”, as NDSU professor Dr. David Wells said at 1 Million Cups this morning, with a turnout of about 140 students and a whole slew of brilliant ideas from these future innovators.

Jake Joraanstad of Myriad Mobile emceed the event, which kicked off with a brainstorming exercise; students shouted out random words like Batman, gazebo, Seattle, Wolverine, Snapchat, to name a few. They then formed teams, each team picked two words, and they had just a few minutes to turn those two words into an idea.

Each team pitched their idea on the stage: there was the Batzebo, an all-new toy that features a gazebo that opens up into the batcave. Or Wolverine Knives, a sharp knife printed with a stamp of Hugh Jackman’s signature, that come in packs of three just for your kitchen.

After that it was time for the serious pitches. Approximately 35 ideas were pitched, by individuals or duos, within each of the three categories of the Innovation challenge: product, service, or corn-related service. Everything from using the yellow color in corn to color butter, to developing an app that picks out shapes in the clouds when cloud-watching.

Each idea was written on large sticky notes and voted on afterwards by the audience. Snappy N’ J won with 22 votes and took home the Microsoft Surface. Coming in second for the Nexus 7 was Ben Ferguson, with an idea he called Hunter Tracker that would allow arrows to be tracked through radio frequency when hunting with a crossbow. In third place for the iPad mini was Xiaofeng Lyu who, with his team partner, had an elaborate prototype already in place for an LED design. And these were just a few of the many innovative ideas shared that night!

The event was merely the beginning of NDSU’s Innovation Challenge for 2015, which is open for registration now and will complete in February of next year. Participants have a chance to win a part of $20,000 in cash prizes!

Over the course of the Innovation Challenge, NDSU will be offering three to five hands-on boot camps facilitated by leaders and professionals from the business community to help students develop their innovative ideas. They will also be hosting three to four speakers, innovators who have successfully turned ideas into reality, to share their personal stories about the “Entrepreneur Experience”.

This morning at 1 Million Cups, Dr. Wells reflected on the event and the “fearless spirit” he saw in many of the young idea-makers. “We hope we can continue to count on you to support our students and help them change the world,” he said.

If you are an NDSU student that has an idea and want to take it to the next step, sign up today for the Innovation Challenge! The deadline is October 27, so act now and register here.