1. Dunlap COOKIE MONSTERS
Research Project
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2. Mouse Fun
Making Corn Chips Safer
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3. Food ,Ingredients ,and Contamination
• Food: Corn Chips
• Main ingredients:
o Cornmeal
o Water
o Salt
o Vegetable Oil
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4. Researched & Led the discussions
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5. Food ,Ingredients ,and Contamination
• Team equally split up ingredients to
investigate
• Discussed data to decide on contamination
• Contamination in cornmeal: mice in silos
• Team on field trip to local farm
• Mice were found in corn drier
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6. Current - Cornmeal Processing
•Mechanical Methods like sifting
– To separate out foreign objects, such as mice
•Magnets
– Used to filter out metal objects
•Chemicals
– Used to neutralize mice contaminations
– Fungicides, Rodenticides, Veterinary Pharmaceuticals, Solvents, and
Fillers
Diseases Caused by Mice
•Hantavirus Syndrome – mice urine contamination
•Salmonellosis – mice germs contamination
•Tularemia - mice saliva contamination
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7. Cu nt Che icals U se
rre m d
I m o H u ans
pact n m
Rodenticides Fungicides Pharmaceuticals
Non- Eco- Friendly
Harmful to Humans
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8. Ultrasonic I nno ativ S o tio
v e lu n
Each $ 15
#3per silo Ye A ro nd Pro ctio
ar u te n Glue Board
Each box $ 4
#5 boxes per silo
Summer
o nic
s
tra s
Ul ard
bo
Average silo can hold 40,000 bushels of corn.
Spring G lue Fall
Average market value is $168000.
Our year round cost is only .15% of this.
s
rap
Cost per bushel= $0.006
If the average bushel market value h T
tc
increases by even 1 cent, giving Ca
good profit margin
Year around Sil o Catch traps
Winter
Co r n in
Total cost – Each $ 13
~ $200 #10 per silo
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9. • Presented to three farmers
• They liked the idea of seasonal control strategy
• They suggested us to breakdown how many of these devices need to be used per
storage bin
• They also enquired about the total cost of implementing our solution
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10. Bibliography
INTERNET
• www.fda.gov - Regulations on food processing
• www.cdc.gov - General disease and human info
• www.idph.state.il.us - Health and disease
• www.orkin.com - Mice and chemicals
PRINTED
• www.santharia.com
• Wall Street Journal
- Market prices and traps
-
Common chemicals
HANDS ON
Trip to Corn Field
EXPERTS & Storage Silos
• Local Farmers - Corn storage, mice control
• Physician - Human health & contaminations
• High school Students - Past FLL experience
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11. SCRIPTS
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12. Deepti & Yashodha Script
D: I am Deepti, acting as a mice
Y: I am Yashodha, acting as another mice
D: (eating chips from a bag off floor) yum . . . This is sooooo good
Y: (running in and gently pushes bag out of way) hay what d’you think? You’re doing?
D: I’m eating
Y: Do you know how many chemicals there are in that?
D: Huh?
Y: There might be some of uncle Bob’s hair in that too!
D: (sick face) Eeeew (choking pretend)
Y: Our chosen research problem is mice contamination in corn and cornmeal. Toxic
chemicals are added to neutralize mice contamination.
D: Our innovative solution is using off the shelf tools around the year to minimize /
decrease mice contaminations in corn silos.
Next is Zach will be talking about our subject of research
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13. Zach’s Script
My name is Zach
•The food that we decided to investigate is corn chips.
•The 4 main ingredients in corn chips are:
– Vegetable oil
– Cornmeal
– Salt
– Water
•Our team split up the ingredients for each member to research
•After discussing the data, we decided our contamination
•The contamination that we chose was mice in silos that contaminate cornmeal
•Next Chait will speak about current solutions for this contamination
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14. Chait’s Script
My name is Chaitanya
Currently, processing factories use mechanical methods, like sifting to
separate out foreign objects such as metal and mice out of corn.
After these steps, toxic man made chemicals are added in the cornmeal
processing to neutralize mice contaminants.
Next Manus will speak about the chemicals and its effects on humans
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15. Manus’ Script
My name is Manus
These chemicals like fungicides, rodenticides and pharmaceuticals are
artificially chemicals. These artificial toxic chemicals are in general not
eco friendly and harmful to our bodies in the longer span of life. When
human consume these chemicals in low level they may not harm, but if
consumed at high level will be harmful.
If corn chips don’t contain these chemicals, chips will become more eco
friendly and healthier for humans.
Next Santosh and John will be speaking about our innovative solution
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16. Jon and Santosh’s Script
My name is Jon And I am Santosh.
Santosh: Our innovative solution is using existing tools and traps
through out the year. We Have multiple ways to get rid of mice. Our first
tool is an ultrasonic device. These cost $15 a piece.
Jon: (hold up box) these send high frequency sound waves through the
ground or air, but do not harm humans or mice, they only drive mice
away.
Santosh: Next, our glueboards which cost $4 per box.
Jon: These are plastic rectangles with glue on top
Santosh: Finally, we have catch traps which are $13.
Jon: These are metal boxes where the mouse walks in and gets trapped.
Santosh: First is spring, which is the perfect time to catch the mice. You
can use all traps in the spring. Next is summer, where there are fewer
mice. We can only use Catch traps because of the weather. You cannot
use ultrasonic because it needs wet weather for the waves to travel.
Also, you cannot use glueboards because they will gain lots of dust.
Same in the fall, with cornhusk. The Ultrasonic will not work because of
the noise. In the winter, you can only use ultrasonic because of the
snow. This will mess up glueboards and catch traps will rust. This is our
plan.
Next, Abhinu will speak about local farmers’ comments and feedback.

17. Abhinu Script
As you saw our research was about how to reduce mice contamination in corn stored in
the grain bins
We studied the use of chemicals as current methods to control it and its side effects on
humans
Our innovative solution is to use combination of various economical devices which are
also humane.
Our team believes this solution is an easy and effective way to make corn chips more
natural food
Cookie mosnters also shared our project with three local farmers. Based on our solution,
one of the farmers has placed mice traps around a silo, and will let us know how it turns
out.
Thank you for your time
Cookie monsters …. Num … num … num
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18. Food Factor / Project Planning
Identify Food Food Journey
Ingredient
21 Sept 28 Sept 05 Oct
‘tree’ Field Trip
08 Oct
14 Oct 14 Oct
Choose A Contamination Ingredient
Contamination in the Journey? Journey12 Oct
Identify Real World Problem
In Food Journey
26 Oct
Present our
solution @ 07Dec
Develop Innovative Practical Tournament
Scientific Solution
04 Nov
Caterpillar: Confidential Green 18