When Trevis Kurz looked around at his surroundings last March, he knew he was representing Ohio State to people from all over the world. The commotion was incredible, the excitement was infectious and the competition seemed insurmountable.

“There were 50,000 people,” Kurz said. “It was total chaos, I didn’t know what was going on that first day.”

Kurz is not a five-star recruit on the men’s basketball team. He is a third-year in industrial design who placed first at the 2010 International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago March 14 to 16.

Kurz, a transfer student from Toledo, won first place alongside a student from the University of Illinois in the Student Design Competition at the show. Each student received $2,500 for winning the competition.

Kurz’s winning entry in Chicago was what he called the Sanas Smoke Alarm. Kurz had been assigned to the baby boomer generation and discovered that many people he talked to had problems changing the batteries on their alarms.

“I found out that a lot of people couldn’t even access their smoke alarms without a ladder, and so the whole premise for me was to design a smoke alarm that you could access without getting off the ground,” Kurz said.

So he designed a model that works with an everyday broom handle, using a quick-release spring to drop the alarm down the broom handle to eye level for battery changing and a face that acts as an “off button” that can be hit if the alarm sounds and there isn’t a fire.

Kurz first started studying industrial design at the Art Institute in Pittsburgh. But after a few years, he realized he would have more opportunity at OSU than at a specialized school like the Art Institute.

“I’m in a class now where there are two business students, one MBA, a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer and a designer all working together on one project,” Kurz said. “You don’t have that opportunity anywhere else.”

It was in a similar class at OSU that Kurz first started working on the project that took him to the housewares competition, which challenges student designers to design product concepts that help people more efficiently perform everyday tasks, according to its website.

Jamie Perin, a third-year and a classmate of Kurz, placed third. The International Housewares Association selected Kurz and Perin to attend the show after reviewing their submissions in January. Kayla Rosebrook and Emma Sanders, both third-years in industrial design, received honorable mentions at the show.

The University of Illinois was the only university to have more students place than OSU.

While at the show, Kurz was approached by several companies that wanted to license and produce his smoke alarm. But since returning to Columbus, he said the excitement has died down.

“I don’t really know what, if anything, I’m going to do with it,” Kurz said. “People get really excited over the designs at show but don’t really pursue it after the fact.”

Kurz will return to Chicago during the summer for an internship with Beyond Design, Inc., a company specializing in consulting with producers, and will travel to Germany this fall to intern with an industrial cleaning supply design company.