News United States Air Force
 Spark Tank 2021 finalists announcedPublished Jan. 21, 2021
                        
                        
                        Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
                **ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) --**
                It’s been nearly a year since Master Sgt. Gabrial Valenzuela, Capt. David Coyle and Lt. Adam Treece were selected as co-winners of **Spark Tank 2020** for their Smart Weapons Loading Checklist and Low-Cost Threat Emitter concepts.

Now, with 2021 underway, Air Force and Space Force leaders have selected five more ideas from the **Spark Tank 2021** semi-finals board to be shared virtually with senior leaders at this year’s **Air Force Association Virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium**.

Spark Tank — the Department’s capstone innovation campaign co-produced by Rich Lombardi, Air Force deputy chief management officer, and AFWERX — unleashes the innovative capacity of Airmen and Guardians, reflecting leadership’s continued efforts to empower intrepreneurs, celebrate their problem-solving skills and give them a stage to share their projects with fellow service members and the world.

“Spark Tank is a fantastic opportunity to showcase and celebrate Airmen and Guardian risk-takers, idea makers and intrepreneurs who refuse to accept the status quo, develop solutions that improve how our jobs are done,” said Brou Gautier, Spark Tank director.

Board members reviewed 15 submissions competing for the stage. The selection process looked at the need for specific capabilities as well as concerns of safety, policy, Air Force and Space Force-wide implementation, technical feasibility and scalability.

Spark Tank offers the opportunity to get their ideas in front of key enabling agencies that can share expertise and resources such as funding or personnel for the projects being presented and demonstrate pathways for intrepreneurs to make their initiatives successful.

Although only five ideas will be pitched on the virtual stage at this year’s Spark Tank, more than 300 Airmen and Guardians took the plunge and submitted ideas during the campaign on the **Airmen Powered by Innovation** ideation management platform, which spurred multiple mini-events at the major and field command level connecting Airmen and Guardians with local resources such as public affairs, finance, contracting and legal.

“Key themes included process and policy change recommendations in addition to development of new products or applying existing products in new ways across the board in information technology, healthcare, and maintenance,” Gautier said. “Seeing the results of previous competitions, we noticed a spike in ideas about distributed computing, automation, unmanned systems, additive manufacturing, and sustainability, as well as cultural, diversity and inclusion ideas.”

In his 2020 strategic approach entitled ***Accelerate Change or Lose***, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., asserts, “Our Airmen need us to integrate and accelerate the changes necessary to explore new operational concepts and bring more rapidly the capabilities that will help them in the future fights. To do this, we must . . . place capability in warfighters’ hands faster—through innovation, experimentation and rapid prototyping, and a collaborative approach with our service and industry teammates.**”**

**Spark Tank 2021 finalists:**

Master Sgt. Justin Bauer
355th Fighter Wing
Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, Air Combat Command

**Innovative Approach to C-130 Wheel Repair**

To address the shortage of C-130 wheels, Master Sgt. Justin Bauer designed a heating element that fits the wheel, heating only the portion required by applicable technical data. This heating element only requires 120 volts of electricity making it accessible to every DOD facility. It weighs just three to five pounds, and reduces the repair time.

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Maj. Kevin Hawkins, 1st Lt. Daniel Treece, Mr. Dylan Kerr of Arizona State University
56th Fighter Wing
Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, Air Education and Training Command

**Next Gen Debrief – Augmented Reality Debrief Environment**

A team from Luke AFB, in partnership with Arizona State University’s Luminosity Lab, developed the Next Gen Debrief, a concept that utilizes augmented reality systems to create a shared environment in which mission participants debrief in a virtual scene, projected into their current environment. This projection provides a truly three-dimensional representation of events, while also displaying key data and flight parameters. Ultimately, this exercise improves identification and internalization lessons learned when analyzing complex flight events. The information gathered can be shared across multiple locations.

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Col. Thomas K. Swoveland, 2nd. Lt. Mark Seay, Tech. Sgt. Ananias Ross, Mr. Anthony Apodaca, Ms. Crystal Kelley, Mr. Bryan Gilbrech
United States Air Force Academy
Colorado Springs, Colorado

**Improving Commander’s Support Staff Workflow with Office 365**

A team from the United States Air Force Academy developed a ticketing system to manage submissions, track status updates, monitor communication and ensure resolution. Office 365 provided the tools to design and deploy the system on computers, tablets and mobile devices. One *Power Apps*app allows users to submit requests and track status while another allows CSS members to assign, add notes/attachments, and mark actions as complete. *SharePoint* stores the data while *Power BI* produces live dashboards for status and flagging overdue actions.

**https://static.dvidshub.net/media/video/2010/DOD_108013618/DOD_108013618.mp4**

Maj. David Steward, Col. John Tran, Master Sgt. Chris Pettingill, Master Sgt. Anthony Taylor, Master. Sgt. Charles Morrison, Tech. Sgt. Chris Anderson
100th Air Refueling Wing
RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom, United States Air Forces Europe/Air Forces Africa

**Inner Ear Bone Conduction Communication**

Bone conduction technology removes ambient noise and voice constraint when operating in loud or Mission Oriented Protective Posture, or MOPP, conditions by allowing augmented sound through external microphones to allow the wearer the ability to hear surrounding noise. This improves situational awareness while wearing noise cancelling hearing protection. In addition, using this device improves radio communications while wearing respirators, masks, and or other voice obstructing devices. Hearing protection offers inner ear hearing protection higher than current over the ear headsets.

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Master Sgt. Jason Yunker, Master Sgt. Timothy Peters
52nd Fighter Wing
Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, United States Air Forces Europe/Air Forces Africa

**Viper Hot Refuel Kit**

The VIPER Hot Refuel Kit takes existing petroleum oil and lubricant components and uniquely configures them into a small, hot pit ready package, completely eliminating need to transport refueling trucks. A custom “sled” built to carry the components doubles as secondary containment to eliminate environmental impact. This equipment will utilize host nation or civilian airport refueling equipment to support fifth generation fighters, as well as any USAF airframe, anywhere in the world. The VIPER kit eliminates a $6,000 per truck, per shipment, (one way), cost by allowing the USAF fuels personnel to utilize host nation/installation infrastructure.

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Spark Tank finalists will present during the **2021 Air Force Association’s Virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium**. Voting will be open on February 12 at 12 p.m., and will close sixty seconds after the last presentation is completed. To vote on finalists’ ideas, visit: **https://PollEv.com/ranking_polls/TfwLKPDbObfFIhAQt5QId/respond**.FS 



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