Lincoln drone system reaches final round of ‘Coolest Thing Made in Nebraska’ contest

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Eight years ago, a startup in Lincoln had a high-tech idea to battle fires. Now, hundreds of their drone systems are being used across the United States to help put out wildfires and they are even up for an award.

The startup, Drone Amplified, recently had their Ignis Firefighting System invention make it to the final round in ‘The Coolest Thing Made in Nebraska’ bracket-style contest put on by Nebraska Manufacturing Alliance.

The competition began with 60 inventions – and people across the state have been helping narrow it down to the winner.

The Ignis Firefighting System has been used to help extinguish wildfires. The system is an attachment for a drone that drops little ping pong sized balls filled with chemicals near the fire. After about 30 seconds, they explode and start a smaller fire meant to make a perimeter for firefighters battling flames and destroy fuel for growing fires.

“It’s not something we expected — I mean we’re a small company, we do our manufacturing here in Lincoln,” Carrick Detweiler, CEO of Drone Amplified, said.

The invention started at a research lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“It’s a project we were working on and really realized there’s a lot of potential to actually get this out, into the hands of firefighters so that they could actually use this in their jobs every day,” Detweiler said.

Today, nearly 200 of the Ignis Systems are used across the U.S. and have even been used in Canada to help with the record wildfire season they’ve seen this year.

“We’re heading up to Canada next month to meet with a bunch of firefighters there,” Mike Johnson, the Chief Operating Officer of Nebraska Chamber of Commerce said.

Their life-saving work led to Nebraskans voting the Ignis System into the finals of the ‘Coolest Thing Made in Nebraska’ contest.

“I think what people most enjoy is learning about an industry sector — manufacturing — that’s making cool stuff in our own backyards that we didn’t even know about,” Detweiler said.

The turnout for voting in the contest has already doubled this year, with one round still to go.

“As Nebraska companies, we don’t always brag about all the great things we’re doing, and I think this type of contest is great to highlight all of the great work going on in Nebraska,” Detweiler said.

Detweiler said Drone Amplified’ is working on expanding and recently opened up an office outside of Philadelphia to increase their capacity outside of Nebraska.

Voting closes at the end of day Sunday and the winner will be announced on Oct. 10. People can cast their vote on https://www.nemanufacturingalliance.com/.

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