Engineering Students Creating a New Fishing Product

Hi all.

My friends and I are in an engineering class for high school and as a group we have decided to try and create a new tip-up like product for ice fishing. We have seen products such as the I-fish pro, automatic fisherman, and Jawjacker, but we want to come up with a new design that is more convenient/practical to use. If anyone has experience with these products or knows about them in any way at all we would love to hear some feedback on what is good/bad about them. 

We are also not completely set in stone on this as a final topic. If anyone has problems they consistently run into while out on the ice (besides not catching fish) we would love to hear about them!

For keeping an ice fishing hole open, a small pump is the way to go, with a nice USB-rechargeable lithium battery.  Should have adjustable duty cycle so angler can extend battery life / and or adjust for weather conditions.  Should float, lol.

I would definitely agree with the comments to keep the hole from re-freezing.  It seems that a floating heater of some kind would make the most sense, like a waterproof hand-warmer or something like that.  The biggest hurdle I see with that, though, would be finding the balance between keeping the hole thawed without damaging the line.

Not as practical or realistic, but I always thought it would be funny if a tipup shoots off a firework or a flare when the flag goes up.

I'd like to see an insulated iFish pro style tip-up. The insulated circular frabill tip ups have their flaws, but they definitely insulate a hole better than any other tip up. I know some people have tried to use spray foam inside the iFish pros but that didn't help at all. This seems to be an common issue with any of the new style tip ups or jawjackers where you use a pole to reel them in...

The only problem I've had with regard to the Jawjackers is the hole freezing up which prevents the line from moving when the fish bites. This allows the fish to steal the bait without triggering the hookset.

On really cold days you have to constantly clear ice in every hole.

That's the only problem that I've had with Jawjackers, so good luck trying to improve those in particular...

You can start with heated handles on jigging rods. The lithium batteries nowadays are small enough to fit inside the handle.They have to be re-chargeable though.     CARPIO