Micro Motors Inc. won top honors last night in the Ninth Annual Engineering Awards sponsored by Product Design and Development magazine. The company, located in Santa Ana, CA, received the Gold Award for its HealOzone II Dental Device.

The Silver Award recipient was Reactive Metals for its N-Abler 5 Function Wrist, and the Bronze Award was presented to Kerk Motion Products for its Mini Series Lead Screw used in the Deltec Cozmo Pump.

These companies were honored for their engineering contributions in an awards ceremony at the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel. Product Design and Development magazine, which is circulated nationally to 160,000 design engineers, uses the awards program to recognize engineers and their design ideas that offer the most innovation, creativity, and promise for improving our world.

Readers of Product Design and Development served as judges of the contest. Selections were made from 50 finalists featured in the magazine's December issue. Voting was done through reader ballots, which were verified prior to tabulation.

The HealOzone Mark II Dental Device is intended to treat dental caries with an application of ozone. Rather than drilling and filling dental caries, dentists can apply the ozone via a handpiece with a sealing cup attached. The exposure to ozone dramatically reduces micro-organisms in primary root carious lesions. HealOzone is designed to preserve the natural tooth structure. The device turns a 60-minute treatment, which normally involves local anesthesia and drilling, into a 25-second treatment. The treatment is painless and there is no residual numbness that is normally associated with conventional treatment. The device is engineered to let the body heal itself and to eliminate the risk of further damage to a tooth from pulpal damage.

The N-Abler 5 Function Wrist is a fully integrated, five-function body powered prosthetic wrist incorporating wrist rotation flexion and extension. It provides practitioners in the prosthetic trade a ready made "out-of-the-box" wrist unit, which allows for the fabrication of a prosthetic arm in just hours as opposed to days or even weeks. The practitioner can simply laminate the wrist to the distal end of the prosthetic arm, then set up the cable operated locks on the rotation and flexion portion of the wrist. With the wrist, the patient has 290-degrees of ball bearing rotation with 14 locking positions. It is lightweight, weighing 185 g. and has a quick disconnect for changing or repositioning terminal devices. The wrist can be retrofitted into existing lamination rings, eliminating the need to fabricate new arms.

The Mini Series lead screw is used in the Deltec Cozmo Pump, an insulin infusion device. The pump is a lightweight cell phone-size device worn by people with diabetes that delivers insulin at regularly scheduled intervals through a short, flexible plastic tube inserted just under the skin. The lead screw used in the pump compresses the syringe to inject the insulin. The lead screw pushes down on the drive rod, which is actually a complex machined plastic plunger. The nut incorporates threads working with the screw to set in motion the pump's inner lock mechanism. The pump and lead screw assembly is designed to replace human elements in administering insulin. The precision fit of the lead screw and nut not only ensures proper administration but also creates a sealing feature that helps maintain a strict separation between the medication and the pump parts.

Kathy Quinlan, publisher, and Len Vermillion, managing editor, of Product Design and Development, presented the awards during a reception in the hotel's Crystal Ballroom. In addition to a crystal globe, a symbol of how engineering is improving our world, each company was given a monetary award. Micro Motors Inc. received $2,500; Reactive Metals was presented with $1,500; and Kerk Motion Products received $1,000.

Seven other products were recognized last night for engineering creativity, innovation, and usefulness to society. Listed below are the runners-up in this year's contest.

4th place: TracVision A5 satellite TV antenna from KVH Industries Inc. in Middletown, RI
5th place: The Protokey Rapid Prototyping Service from Datakey Electronics Inc. in Burnsville, MN
6th place: The Adventure Ambulatory Aid Tip from Keen Mobility in Portland, OR
7th place: The Aberdeen Hi-Arc Pulldown Kitchen Faucet from Moen Inc. in North Olmsted, OH
8th place: The Cure dental LED from Spring Health Products in Norristown, PA
9th place: The Miller Edge fall protection system from Miller Fall Protection in Franklin, PA
10th place: The TG3300 Series Brush DC Motor from ThinGap Motor Technologies in Ventura, CA