INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Call it a fifth-grade science fair on steroids.

Purdue University students accepted the challenge last August to create new corn and soybean products from concept to market in just six months. Many new products take years of research and development before marketing; not so with cutting-edge innovations from these students.

Fifty teams began the competition, combining their majors in biology, chemistry, agronomy, agribusiness, marketing, electronics and others to brainstorm and produce new products. Their work included literature review, patent review, a business and marketing plan and a prototype ready to market.

Eight teams made it to the final round of the annual Student Soybean and Corn Product Innovation Competitions, sponsored by checkoff dollars of the Indiana Soybean Alliance and Indiana Corn Marketing Council. Winners were announced March 28 at an awards banquet in Indianapolis.

Jane Ade Stevens, executive director for both checkoff organizations, acknowledged grain farmers in the audience and said, “You are the reason we are here.

“Indiana soybean and corn farmers continue to fund these competitions at Purdue because they believe that encouraging students to think about corn and soybeans in new ways benefits our state’s soybean and corn industries in a multitude of ways.”

She commended the students and said what they had accomplished in a short amount of time was remarkable. “We are excited to see that interest in these competitions continues to be strong, and that we continue to attract students from across the university who use their creativity and knowledge to bring us a high caliber of products,” she added.

Winning teams in both categories each won $20,000, with second-place teams winning $10,000. Each team worked with two Purdue faculty advisors, and Purdue holds the patents on the new products.

The winning corn team produced Ceres Cosmetics, composed of 40 percent corn chaff, which is known for its ability to absorb oils and is hypoallergenic. The corn chaff powder replaces the talc normally found in cosmetics. The name is based on Ceres, the goddess of harvest.

Ceres Cosmetics team members are Jessica Brazelton, a graduate biology student from Monongahela, Pa.; Michaelann Kresel, a senior agro-business student from Westville, Ind.; Soo Yee Kuah, a junior biochemistry student from Ipoh, Malaysia; and Shengjie Xu, a junior biology student from Shanghai.

Xu had taken a class on stage makeup and had an idea how cosmetics were made. The four women brainstormed about how to improve existing products.

“When you compare our eye shadow, bacteria will not grow in it, but with starch-based makeup, bacteria will grow,” Xu said.

The team said the environmental footprint is significantly smaller than with conventional cosmetics, and the target market is 15- to 19-year-old girls who are environmentally conscious and prone to oily skin.

The winning soybean team created Soytronics, a flexible, lightweight and low-cost substrate on which an electronic circuit is printed. The team said the key advancement is in replacing petroleum-derived, epoxy-based substrates currently used for making printed circuit boards.

Soytronics team members are Carmen Valverde-Paniagua, a junior mechanical engineering student of Chihuahua, Mexico, and chemical engineering graduate students Aniruddha Kelkar of Mumbai and Anand Venkatesan of Chennai, India.

Kelkar said the team noted 20 million-50 million pounds of electronic waste is dumped every year, with 80 percent ending up in landfills. They looked at the molecules that go into plastic boards and noted they looked much like those of soybean oil.

“As the major component of our substrate is a soy derivative, our substrates are biodegradable, eco-friendly and reusable,” the team stated.

Kelkar remembered how their advisors grilled them in the beginning on the viability of Soytronics, and how ideas from other teams were getting tossed out. “We held out right on down the line and realized that no one had discarded our idea,” he said.

The second-place corn Team Kaizen developed helmet padding made from cornstarch. The padding can be used in helmets that would need to absorb dangerous blows, such as in football.

Team Kaizen members are Alice Bao, a junior management student from Beijing; Jin Sun, an agronomy graduate student from Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China; Peren Xiao, a junior economics student from Austin, Texas; and Xiangye Xiao, a graduate student in agronomy from Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, China.

The second-place soybean team developed SoyBright, a nanomolecular soy-based polish aimed primarily at the automotive market. Team members are Milad Alucozai, a sophomore psychology student from West Lafayette, Ind., and Edward Van Bogaert, a senior history student from Rochester, Ill.