ANN ARBOR ? A T-Shirt marketing company for K-12 schools won first place in the Great Lakes Entrepreneur?s Quest contest, while second place went to a company that produces an instrument to help life sciences researchers took second. Four other finalists in the Emerging Technology track were named honorable mention.

The Spring Awards ceremony was held Tuesday night at the MITC Building, the new home of Internet2, Merit Systems and GLEQ.

The winner, Spirit Shop Inc.,, uses proprietary technology to produce in El Salvador personalized digital printing and embroidery for apparel purchased by school children in grades K-12. The merchandise are shipped via DHL to the United States. The business model was developed by Todd Sullivan and Christine Clark, both MBA students at the Ross M. School of Business at the University of Michigan. Spirit Shop won $25,000 in cash, three hours of legal services, two hours of financial, accounting and website consulting.

Second place went to Accuri Instruments Inc., which makes a low cost cytometer used to measure the properties of cells, microbes or other particles by illuminating the objects in a fluid with a laser and then analyzing the reflected light. The business model was developed by Jennifer Baird, Collin Rich and David Olson. Accuri won $12,500 in cash, two hours of legal services, and two hours of financial, accounting and website consulting.

Honorable mention ? which includes two hours of financial, accounting and PR consultation ? went to:

Evigia Systems ? A fables semiconductor company developing low-cost RFID based MEMs sensor tags for the supply chain management applications;

Integrated BioMimetics ? A women?s health laboratory test company that mimics the female reproductive system for use in In Vitro Fertilization procedures to reduce the risk of multiple births;

Pixel Velocity ? A proprietary 3-D accurate, low-cost facial biometric camera for security applications;

SciZone ? A flight management system to control unmanned aerial vehicles used by the military and other governmental organizations. The system uses collision avoidance, proximity radar and vision systems that are transmitted to a remote control unit.

Each of the six finalists gave a 3-minute elevator pitch to a panel of Venture Capital judges which scored the presentations. The score counted for 25 percent of the overall total.

Cash awards also were given for New Business Ideas:

$2,500 to Rapid BioSense ? which will manufacture and market a highly sensitive rapid biosensor to detect bacteria and viruses in a liquid sample;

$1,500 to SystemAuto Inc. ? which will develop a new generation of CAE tools to support the design of complex electronic and software based systems;

$1,000 to SightLines Consulting Inc. ? which will create an Internet-based Warehouse Management System to provide medium-sized businesses in the wholesale/distribution/e-Commerce industry the ability to maximize warehouse throughput and worker productivity.