Naperville has always been a place where innovation meets community. Danny Puknaitis and Allen Xu are great examples of that. During NCTV17’s “The Morning Show,” the two shared their inspirations behind their inventions, both previously featured on Naperville News 17, and how they continue to help make a difference.
Trailblazing technology for fighting fires
Puknaitis has not only dedicated his career to protecting lives as a firefighter but has also, together with fellow firefighter Michael Jost, co-created a groundbreaking new tool for the industry.
The Poseidon Nozzle is a narrow box, several feet long, crafted from aircraft-grade aluminum and perforated to allow water to escape. The device attaches to a standard fire hose and then slides directly under a vehicle, into the undercarriage. This allows a firefighter to actively cool the underside of an electric vehicle, where the lithium-ion battery is typically located. It can also extinguish a fire from a car’s engine while rescuing a passenger trapped inside.
“So both my lieutenant, Mike Jost, and we’re at Naperville Station 10, and we’re both firefighters. And four years ago, we started seeing more EVs… We started thinking to ourselves, what happens when an electric vehicle catches on fire in somebody’s house or their garage…What are we doing? And let’s talk about this now before it gets to like an emergency at two in the morning…So from a very simplistic standpoint, understanding the battery components of an electric vehicle and where they’re stored, we’re like, we just need to get water underneath this car and take all the complications out of an electric vehicle and break it down to its basics,” said Puknaitis.
Since its creation, the Poseidon Nozzie has become available for other fire departments to order. Pukanitis and Jost have also collaborated with Argonne Laboratories and the University of Illinois for further research.
Diving into an invention
Meanwhile, Xu and three friends – Kyle Wang, Aiden Xie, and Steven He – have designed a product that could revolutionize underwater exercise for the visually impaired.
The EyeRobic is a special headband that has a camera that tracks the T-markers at the bottom of pools and then, with the help of bone conduction headphones, communicates with swimmers to help them remain centered and on course. It will also sense when the swimmer is nearing the end of the marker, and once it’s time to turn, the user hears clicks.
“I’ve been a competitive swimmer for over ten years now and a coach for the past four, but two summers ago, I found myself teaching a visually impaired swimmer for the first time, who dreamed of exercising independently someday without needing assistance from guides or tappers. And over the course of a few months, we worked together to create a system of cues that would help her navigate,” said Xu.
Xu and his friends entered Eyerobic in global competitions. As part of the Conrad Challenge, the device was placed as one of the top five inventions in the cyber-technology and security category. In the BlueOcean competition, the product ranked in the top 30 among 12,000 entries.
“I realized that the real issue was never her ability to begin with, but rather the lack of accessibility and smart tools that would help her navigate on her own… Could we take some inspiration from the principles behind self-driving cars, as well as recent improvements in machine learning, to create a device that could guide swimmers?” said Xu.
NCTV17 spotlights smart solutions
Local media storytelling plays a powerful role in spotlighting new inventions by connecting innovation to the community it serves. By sharing the people, passion, and purpose behind creations such as these, NCTV17 inspires local pride, sparks collaboration, and helps groundbreaking new ideas gain the visibility they need to grow.
“To send that video footage to a fire department that knows nothing about an electric vehicle fire…and when they say, like, oh, what is this video? I’m like, oh, my hometown. They have their own TV station,” said Puknaitis.
Xu says he grew up watching NCTV17 sports highlights, and he still does.
“I think as students, it’s not often that we get opportunities like these to share ideas with the people who use them and need them, let alone speaking from cameras or like a larger audience like this one… I think it’s incredible to have these opportunities to show innovations and share them with the community that inspired them,” said Xu.
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