Build the machine that weighs the powder.
Four teams of five. Eight weeks. One real, unsolved problem inside a working compounding pharmacy. Design and build an automated powder-weighing machine — accurate from milligrams to kilograms, with minimal human involvement.
The problem, exactly as stated.
“Compounding pharmacies require precise measurement of powders across a wide range of quantities. Current manual processes are time-consuming, error-prone, and labor-intensive.”
— Lab Tech Innovation Challenge brief
- ✓Accurate from milligram to gram/kilogram quantities, at pharmacy-grade tolerance.
- ✓Automated — minimal to no human involvement during weighing.
- ✓Hygienic and safe for use in a real compounding pharmacy environment.
- ✓Reproducible — consistent across repeated tests.
From kickoff to Demo Day.
Why apply.
$18/hour, up to 15 hours per week, for the full 8 weeks. Tracked weekly through the participant dashboard.
$10,000 to the winning team, $3,000 to the runner-up, $1,500 for third. Fourth place earns a certificate of participation and structured feedback.
Top contributors from any team — regardless of placement — are eligible for ongoing roles awarded by the Itkan, MedRock, and MedDots judging panel.
Live machines, real powder, on the pharmacy floor at MedRock Pharmacies.
Every team demos in front of judges drawn from Itkan, MedRock, and MedDots. Scoring blends technical performance under real conditions with documentation and design rationale. The fourth visit is a pre-flight check — the fifth is the show.
See how scoring worksReady to put a team together?
Applications close TBD. The panel reviews every submission before Week 1 begins.