Raleigh, North Carolina

One $6,000 scholarship to be awarded to student receiving highest number of votes.

Joshua ChappellSenior Staff Writer

Vinnie Feucht wants to change the world.

Feucht, a senior in English, is a final-ist for the 2011 Innovation Institute Scholarship, which would provide him the opportunity to work in Manyeleti, South Africa and Kayafungo, Kenya this summer. The Innovation Insti-tute is a part of the nonprofit organi-zation ThinkImpact, which seeks to inform American students in social entrepreneurship through immersion programs.

Selected students work in rural Afri-can communities and help the African people discover their respective assets and resources, thereby empowering them to self-generate entrepreneurial ideas that help to alleviate rampant poverty, according to Feucht.

Feucht said while his career plans are mostly uncertain, he is currently considering pursuing career combin-ing nonprofit work and his favorite hobby – cooking.

“I’m considering opening a restau-rant that serves as a halfway house for the homeless, providing them work and a skill while helping them get through school,” Feucht said.

Although he said he has no idea how he would accomplish such a task, he be-lieves the Innovation Institute is a great place to start be-cause it would allow him to learn how to help others and work to change the world.

“[The Innovation Institute] would be the first time I’ve ex-perienced the cliché idea of changing the world,” Feucht said. “This nonprofit makes real dif-ferences by fostering a sustainable ap-

proach to philanthropy.”Feucht said the program would al-

low him to experience a new culture and lend a helping hand in the lives of others, and he hopes this program

will foster his inter-est in service, which is in the “forefront” of his career plans.

A c c o r d i n g t o Feucht, ThinkIm-pact helps spur social innovation by bridg-ing the gap between potential and actual financial success by focusing on the as-sets that rural com-

munities already posses.Feucht heard about the program

from a fellow student who partici-

pated in the program last year, Tyler Maloney, a sophomore in biological engineering.

The first part of the scholarship process was an application that asked background questions, according to Feucht. There was then an interview via Skype that the committee used to select the finalists.

“There was an interview question that asked what I would do with a cardboard box, some duct tape, and a couple of tennis balls,” Feucht said. “I said I’d make a mini soccer field and entertain kids.”

Hailing from rural southeastern Virginia, Feucht has had a special love for the University from a young age.

“My sister came here and she in-grained in me at an early age a certain love for the Wolfpack,” Feucht said.

“I’ve been playing the red and white song on my trumpet since fifth grade.”

Over his college career, Feucht has studied abroad in Guatemala and Ecuador. He has also been in the marching band, pep band and Chorale, and was the Mr. Wuf mascot for a year.

“Everyone loves you [while you’re the mascot], but then you change clothes and no one looks at you anymore,” Feucht said.

Students can vote by visiting the ThinkImpact website – www.thinkimpact.org and clicking his “muddy face.” Voting closes at 5:00 PM on Jan. 31, 2011.

When asked why students should

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student thesis & research projectsnovels & poetry collections

autobiographies & memoireschildren’s books, genealogies

cookbooks, comic bookscompilation of student essays Located at Atrium Food Court

Search engine giant now hosts local public transport info.

Elise HeglarStaff Writer

Using public transportation in the Triangle just got much easier for N.C. State students, thanks to a new part-nership with Google Transit.

GoTriangle heads up all of the public transportation in the Triangle area, including the Wolfline. It decided to partner with Google after seeing the growing popularity of their services, according to Lauren Parker, GoTri-angle’s marketing coordinator.

According to the Google Transit Partner Program website, Google Transit is “a public transportation planning tool that combines the latest agency data with the power of Google Maps. It integrates transit stop, route, schedule, and fare information to make trip planning quick and easy.”

“The project came about after re-ceiving several requests from Triangle area riders [and] visitors who wanted the service, as well as seeing the grow-ing popularity of Google Transit around the world,” Parker said.

According to John Feasel, a sopho-more in history, these new tools will benefit students who like to travel off campus.

“It will be significantly easier to fig-ure out times and places where you can get buses in a mainstream way. Everyone uses Google, so it makes sense to use that for GoTriangle. With parking the way it is, lots of people take buses and this will definitely make things easier for those people,” Feasel said.

To get the idea rolling, GoTriangle got in touch with Google to see how it could take advantage of the Transit program.

“They lay out specific instructions for how to add your transit agen-cies routes, schedules and stops to Google. Google has a specific team for transit and we were in touch with them during the initial implementa-tion steps,” Parker said.

There are several public transporta-tion outlets that will be included in the schedule, including the Wolfline, Tri-angle Transit and Capital Area Transit. According to Parker, the partnership with GoTriangle and Google has been in the works for about a year.

“We have been planning to get all GoTriangle partner agencies into Google Transit since early 2009. The Google Transit implementation was just part of a larger vision to provide

GoTriangle gets

its maps up on

Google Transit

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Hunt to incorporate electronic library upgradesHuntLibraryconstructionbringsbooks,newtechnologytoCentennialCampus.Seepage6.

Pulgar paces Pack tennisJunior’shardworkplayingoffinthirdyear.Seepage8.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF VINNIE FEUCHTIf he nabs a scholarship from the Innovation Institute, Vinnie Feucht plans on hopping the pond and heading to Africa to do charitable work in Kenya and South Africa.

Senior on scholarship short list

“I love being

thrown into new

cultures, new

places and new

challenges.”Vinnie Feucht, senior in English

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Students using their research skills to assist visually impaired hockey players.

Brooke WalligDeputy News Editor

With the NHL All-Star hockey game approaching fast, N.C. State took a moment to be sure everyone could ap-preciate the thrill of playing the game.

Partnering with Mark DeMontis, founder of Courage Canada, an or-ganization designed to help people of all ages with visual impairments en-joy learning about and playing hockey, Campus Recreation co-sponsored a three-day series of events to raise awareness for the N.C. State Blind Hockey Puck Project. The events also sought to gather support for Courage Carolina, the state’s version of Cour-age Canada.

DeMontis’ website, markdemontis.com, explains why he started Courage Canada just a few years after he was told he would never be able to pursue his dream of playing hockey profes-sionally due to a rare condition that left him legally blind at age 17.

But according to DeMontis, this vi-sual impairment did not diminish his passion for hockey, and for life.

“I may have lost my sight, but I will never lose my vision,” DeMontis said.

His work is inspiring others with vi-sual impairments to step out on the ice. One of the events sponsored in part by Campus Recreation and De-Montis’ charity, a “learn-to-skate” program for the visually impaired, helped students at the Governor Morehead School for the Blind get on the ice.

Michael Scaringelli, a physical edu-cation teacher at the Governor More-head School for the Blind, said this

program was very beneficial to his students.

“This was a great collaboration be-tween all parties involved,” said Scar-

ingelli. “I had six students attend Mark’s program, and they all enjoyed it.”

According to Scaringelli, the op-

portunity for his students to learn to skate is not solely beneficial in terms of staying physically fit.

“This is a very important op-portunity for these kids because it gives them a chance to experi-ence things they may not normally be able to,” Scaringelli said. “It is also important for the word to get out about these programs because they prove to people that with the right adaptations, opportunities like participation in athletics are just as available to students with visual impairments as they are to anyone else.”

Another among the series of events during NHL All-Star week included an information session and fundraiser to raise public awareness and funds for N.C. State’s Blind Hockey Puck Project.

According to Russell Gorga, associate professor and program director for textile engineering chemistry and science, this proj-ect is the work of eight of his senior textile engineering majors to cre-ate a better hockey puck for Blind Hockey leagues.

“Last semester, these students worked in two teams of four and surveyed a lot of blind hockey play-ers in Canada, asking them what they liked about the current pucks as what as what they need,” Gor-ga said. “This semester, they are actually turning those concepts into engineering designs and jus-tifications that they can evaluate and then make prototypes.”

Gorga said currently there are three different types of “pucks” used throughout the various Blind Hockey leagues, none of which are specifically engineered for use in

N.C. State pursuing the perfect puck

AlEx NITT/TECHNICIANMark DeMontis, blind hockey player and founder of Courage Canada, speaks to guests in the Playzone room of Carmichael about his experiences as a blind hockey player and how his condition has inspired him to do anything he puts his mind to. After skating across Canada to raise money for blind hockey, DeMontis founded Courage Canada with the goal to enable blind hockey to be accessible to blind youth across Canada.

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