Students who are set to graduate this year from UNLV's engineering program competed against each other Wednesday to see who could make the most innovative designs.

Some of the year-long projects include a parental keyboard alert system, unmanned aerial vehicles and home cooling alternatives.

Twenty teams took part in the event, all vying for the $2,500 grand prize.

“The main intent of this competition is to improve their creativity. We want students to build commercially-viable products. We want a Bill Gates out of this one day. Hopefully it'll happen in the next 10 years,” said professor Rama Venkat of the College of Engineering.

The winners will be announced Thursday. The school is adding a tech commercialization minor to help engineering students learn how to market their projects.

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