Team Name: Laser Toast “Photoaster”
Term: – Fall 2016
Elevator Pitch: – Create a TOASTER that used a LASER to “print” any image or phrase onto toast.
Notable Achievements: – Team of engineer roommates put in countless hours, rebuilt toaster, printed parts, used print rig from inkjet printer, installed lasers of various sizes (too small, too big, just right), created custom iphone app to drive the printer and created Fretz toast and Harbaugh toast. Highest rated team in the history of the class. 4.85/5. After the semester they put it in a closet and moved on to other cool things.

Team Name: Dog Leash
Term: – Winter 2018
Elevator Pitch: – I love this team because their idea was clever and their process of ideating and making prototypes was so rapid and effective. They ended up with something that was really professional and useful.  It was such a simple idea, but it was done so well and they created something that dog lovers were incredibly enthusiastic about. I love how it showed that you didn’t have to be super fancy or high tech to answer a need that many people had.
Key Founder(s): – Delaney Dimich and Hannah Kresnak
Notable Achievements:
– Explored a possible patent

Team Name: Scrunchie Shot
Term: – Fall 2019
Elevator Pitch: – Discreet bracelet style scrunchie that conceals a shot or two of water, so you can stay, um, hydrated
Notable Achievements:
– Ran as a side hustle for two years, some good success with viral marketing. Designed the prototypes and built with supplies from Lowes.
– They had some real success with their marketing and a big viral hit on Instagram, and they sold out of stock multiple times. They kept it going as a side hustle for a couple of terms, but eventually team dynamics got the better of them and the group broke up.

Team Name: Boosted Moo
Term: – Fall 2023
Elevator Pitch: – Nutritional supplement adding back raw milk health benefits to processed milk
Key Founder(s): – Eric Settineri
Notable Achievements:
– LLC formed
– Formulas tested
– Kickstarter coming
– Improves digestion, fat utilization, muscular recovery, brain health, and energy

Team Name: Lab Rax
Term: – Fall 2023
Elevator Pitch: – One of the team members worked in chemistry labs a lot and found that having a drying rack for all the various glassware was frustrating because the fixed racks didn’t always fit what they were working with. So his big insight was to create ADJUSTABLE racks, and they made a bunch of really cool designs that users found very useful and exciting. They did a great job iterating their prototypes.
Key Founder(s): – Nishant Domala
Notable Achievements:
– Made multiple prototypes and sold some.  Labs loved them.

Team Name: Apple Pencil / The Stem
Term: – Fall 2022
Elevator Pitch: – In the early versions of the stylus that could attach to IPads, it would be handy to have the stylus be able to double as a writing implement. So this group designed and created an actual working pen tip that clipped on to the end of the stylus and could even retract. It was quite the feat of engineering, and very impressive work with the 3D printer.
Key Founder(s): – Constantine Sideratos, Rendie Zhang, Gwen Hudson

Team Name: BoozeBra
Term: – Fall 2023
Elevator Pitch: – These ladies had a very amusing approach to innovation and created functional prototypes that would allow an individual to carry a significant amount of liquid under their shirt, inside their bra. They did a great job iterating increasingly functional prototypes and their pitch certainly had everyone’s attention.
Key Founder(s): – Taylor Petrosky. Arianna Calle

Team Name: Thettle
Term: – Winter 2017
Elevator Pitch: – I was initially suspect that this device could store enough power to heat water.  But, they not only designed it, they won a design competition with it!  This is an example of how in the early versions of the class I learned to just stay out of students way because they would oftentimes do things I thought weren’t possible!
Key Founder(s): – Sarah Wang
Notable Achievements:
– Won Make-a-thon and another contest, got funding.  Produced a working prototype and looked for patents.

Team Name: Norman Doors
Term: – Winter 2018
Elevator Pitch: – Don Norman in his book “The Psychology of Everyday Things” discussed doors that look like they need a push, but ACTUALLY require a PULL.  These frustrating design failures are EVERYWHERE, and are now called ‘Norman Doors’.  This team set out to fix the problem of poorly designed doors (Norman Doors) on campus by placing stickers indicating ‘push’ or ‘pull’.  You can still find these on campus almost ten years later.  How many TENS of THOUSANDS of people have had their days made marginally less annoying thanks to this team
Key Founder(s): – Shayan Golafshani, Anny Lin, Ted Sallen, Walter Jin Shin, Qiaoning Zhang

Team Name: Name Frame
Term: – Fall 2022
Elevator Pitch: – Create custom advertising license plate frames that are highly reflective or lit, with scannable codes URLs.  Get businesses to pay for the advertising that gets seen while parked AND while in traffic.  Got several paying customers including Ashley’s!
Key Founder(s): – Joe Huang