Editor’s note: This story was updated on March 3.
From potato farms to global shipping lanes, ideas from Maine’s R&D department are making an impact
Mainers are known for their Yankee ingenuity, and researchers at the University of Maine are no exception. Our knack for making do and inventing better ways of doing things embodies the resourceful culture of the Pine Tree State.
For 160 years, Maine’s public research university has created practical, accessible education and discoveries that drive progress for the state and beyond. Today, thousands of projects across Maine and around the world work to make life better.
Here are just a few of the bright ideas from Maine’s R&D department:
Invented at UMaine:
Maine’s favorite potato
That satisfying signature crunch in your next bag of potato chips may be a product of UMaine innovation.
The high-yielding Caribou Russet matures quickly and performs well for chip and french fry processors and fresh retail markets — attributes that made the potato Maine’s most sown spud in 2023 and 2024. The variety, developed by UMaine in partnership with the Maine Potato Board at the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station’s Aroostook Farm, debuted in 2015 after more than a decade of development.
More than 80% of Maine’s vegetable cropland is dedicated to potatoes. The crop generated an estimated $1.3 billion and more than 6,500 jobs in 2022. UMaine tests more than 250 new potato varieties each year to find the next spud that will outperform others from the field and to the fryer.
More bridge for your bucks
UMaine engineers have reimagined how bridges are built. UMaine’s award-winning Bridge-in-a-Backpack system uses lightweight composite arch tubes filled with concrete on site, requiring only one-fifth of the concrete used in similar conventionally built designs.
UMaine researchers also originated steel-free, longer-lasting bridge girders. The Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composite Tub Girders helped raise the Grist Mill Bridge in Hampden, and are being used in the Stillwater bridge construction in Old Town.
These lightweight, durable, easily deployed and corrosion-free structures extend the life of bridges to over 100 years with minimal maintenance. Both structure types are produced by Maine-based manufacturer AIT Composites, a division of Basalt International, creating UMaine innovation-backed jobs in the Pine Tree State.
A sculpture that harnesses the sun to make learning math fun
The SunRule helps people visualize multiplication and division through play.
UMaine mathematics educators and artists put their heads together to develop the interactive outdoor sculpture, which made its debut in Orono’s Webster Park in 2022. As users adjust the sculpture’s reflective plate, beams of light shift across a grid to model how numbers scale and relate.
The solar calculator invites learners of all ages to illuminate abstract mathematical concepts through light and motion.
Transforming wood waste into affordable housing
Layer by layer, UMaine researchers are driving down the cost, build time and environmental impact of housing. BioHome3D is the world’s first fully forest-derived, 3D-printed house. The structure, built outside UMaine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center in 2022, is made from corn glue and sawdust.
Houses like BioHome3D can be customized, transported and assembled in a fraction of the time of traditional homes. At the end of the structure’s life, it can be ground up and reprinted, cutting construction waste and costs. It also creates a new market for Maine’s forest sector, which is awash with wood pulp following the decline of paper mills.
The first prototype has withstood three Maine winters, proving that affordable, locally sourced materials that require far less labor that require far less labor can help replace traditional stick built homes. Now, UMaine is collaborating with the nonprofit Penquis to build an affordable housing community in Brewer with nine 3D-printed homes to help address the state’s housing shortage.
Helping people with limited vision live and learn
More than 23 million Americans have vision impairment. Those affected are significantly less likely to earn a degree — about two-thirds lower than in the general population — and 30% do not travel independently. Researchers at UMaine aim to change those statistics through innovation.
The UMaine spinoff UNAR (Universal Accessibility Research) develops technology that helps make digital information accessible to people — no matter how well they can or cannot see. Products like Morf, which instantly transforms math documents into a format that is compatible with screen readers or as a Braille file for embossing, help make education more accessible.
UMaine’s VEMI Lab led the development of an award-winning app, Autonomous Vehicle Assistant (AVA), that helps people with visual impairments and seniors safely navigate around obstacles, like ice, on foot and summon self-driving vehicles offered by ride-sharing services.
Cargo containers that tattle on thieves
Researchers at UMaine and Georgia Tech developed shipping containers that guard against cargo theft, which Homeland Security Investigations estimates costs the American economy $15-35 billion per year. The team developed a faster method for constructing lighter shipping containers with embedded sensors, integrating security directly into the structure.
The technology sparked a spinoff company, Global Secure Shipping, which embedded the sensor the team developed into composite shipping containers, enabling supply chain managers to track whether they have been tampered with, and in the process, created dozens of jobs for Mainers.
A spinoff that saves soldiers’ lives
What started as an idea at UMaine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center has grown into a life-saving enterprise. Founded by Paul Melrose (‘02, ‘04 G) , Compotech is rooted in UMaine-developed materials and methods. Today, the Brewer-based company designs, manufactures and deploys next-generation protection systems for the U.S. military, creating high-paying jobs in the state.
Compotech’s flagship product, the Expeditionary Shelter Protection System, uses lightweight fiber-reinforced composite armor panels that are easy to transport, fast to deploy and protect against ballistic and blast threats. The company’s precipitous growth has been recognized as one of the nation’s fastest-growing on the Inc. 5000 list for the past three years.
Steadfast steel
From machine bearings to airplane parts, high-carbon steel keeps manufacturing and travel running smoothly.
While people have been smelting steel for millennia, manufacturers in the 1920s were able to examine the metal with new precision. They found microscopic cracks were covertly lowering the steel’s resistance to bending, twisting and impact.
Corporations spent decades studying the issue, but it wasn’t until the 1980s when Professor John Lyman, a mechanical engineer at UMaine, found a solution after combing through all the technical literature he could find on the issue for about 15 years. “Happily, the very first thing I tried worked,” he said in a 1986 issue of UMaine’s Alumni Association magazine.
Lyman introduced additional steps to the final hardening process that controlled the formation of crystals in the steel, essentially eliminating the troublesome cracks. It was a question, Lyman said, of “getting all the available knowledge in my head and walking around with it. It popped into my head; I tried it and it worked.”
On the horizon: The world’s next super product
Throughout history, people’s lives have been shaped by the tools and products they use. From Stone Age tools to today’s pervasive plastics, what we use makes one of our most lasting marks on history. If the promising possibilities being developed in UMaine’s research labs are realized, future archaeologists may struggle to find traces of the next big everywhere material.
Nanocellulose is nature’s super polymer. This biodegradable, plant-derived substance is poised to revolutionize everyday products.
The potential applications for nanocellulose are nearly limitless. At UMaine, researchers work on the leading edge of these developments. These products of UMaine ingenuity include:
- An alternative to current implantable materials that can be resorbed by the body as bones heal, reducing the need for costly follow-up surgeries.
- Completely compostable food containers that are free of plastic and forever chemicals.
- A gel that uses nanocellulose and wild blueberry extracts to help chronic wounds heal faster and more completely.
- Tougher particle board for furniture and countertops that sequesters carbon and is free of cancer-causing formaldehyde.
- A new class of building products that includes scratch-, fire- and water-resistant flooring systems, moldable wall panels and a fire-resistant alternative to drywall that is lighter and offers superior insulation.
UMaine leads the nation in the supply of cellulose nanofiber and powers research with this promising material by supplying it to research labs around the globe. At the university’s Process Development Center, nanocellulose is primarily made from the wood pulp generated by forest stewardship activities. The material can also be made from wood waste and recycled fiber.
Contact: Erin Miller, erin.miller@maine.edu.
