June 7, 2023 3:40 a.m. 

Two teams from Umpqua Community College have advanced to InventOR collegiate challenge state finals to compete for a top prize of $30,000.

A UCC release said InventOR is the only competition for college and university students in Oregon to take innovations that address today’s most pressing problems from an idea to a working prototype.

Team LearnSesh and Team AJJ will represent UCC at the upcoming 7th annual InventOR collegiate challenge on June 22nd. The two teams will present their prototypes to generate power with motion and help educators transform learning using virtual reality. Team members are in the UCC Computer Programming Club and Computer Science classes taught by associate professor Vincent Yip. The team members are Avid-Choum-Starkey, Joanna Clark, Jonathan Humphries and Isaiah Weiss.

UCC Dean of Career Technical Education Joshua Ogle said, “Team LearnSesh and AJJ from UCC have incorporated cutting edge technology to solve real-world problems. From power needs to new and inventive ways to teach, both teams from UCC are thinking outside the box and this embodies the UCC Spirit”. Ogle said, “We could not be prouder of our two teams and look forward to the next steps on June 22”.

The release said the teams will compete at the InventOR finals at The Redd East in southeast Portland. The winning team will take home $30,000 in prize money along with valuable mentors and resources to take their inventions from concept to commercialization. All participating teams receive $2,500 in development grant money which aims to take their invention from an idea to a working prototype while learning the process of commercialization.

InventOR is made possible by a number of foundations, Portland State University and Business Oregon.