Professor kicked me out of the honors program, I sent him an email a year later.

It's really not about winning or losing, it's to show that good ideas, sometimes REALLY good ideas are stifled in an academic environment. And to show that the Professors who have obscene amounts of power in college don't use it responsibly. Why give them so much power over students if they won't wield it with the public interest in mind? Especially at a public university? How could a Professor not see the potential of this idea? The student tried the limited amount of recourse he had at his disposal, and eventually gave up, and pursued the project on his own time, lucky for us.

40k for a bachelor level research project? sounds pretty impressive for something that isn't even a business.