Students come up with fresh approach to using water coolers

It started out in a classroom. They hope it ends up at Wal-Mart.

Three recent graduates… It started out in a classroom. They hope it ends up at Wal-Mart.

Three recent graduates of St. Andrew’s School of Boca Raton, Fla., received a patent for an item that would eliminate the need for thirsty athletes to tip the ubiquitous orange water coolers to get the last drop.

Mark Krejcarek, Steve Mattia and Jonathan Boyle came up with the “tip-no-more” idea three years ago as high school seniors in a class called Frontiers in Science and Technology.

About the size of a dinner plate, the insert sits at the bottom of a portable drink dispenser, such as a Gatorade barrel. The top of the insert is slanted, creating a slope for the last drops of liquid to easily make it to the nozzle.

The young men received a U.S. patent this year and say they’re taking baby steps toward mass producing and selling the discs.

“It’s a tangible goal I’m going to have for the next 20 years,” said Krejcarek, now a sophomore engineer/business major at Case Western Reserve in Ohio. “But it isn’t unique that we happened to come up with this. There’s a lot of ideas coming out of high schools. They just aren’t given the opportunity to share it.”

A select group of about 17 St. Andrew’s students have an advantage.

A panel of engineers, faculty members and attorneys agreed to teach them patents pro bono and select one team for a patent application.

The fame of the “tip-no-more” could draw more patent attorneys to high schools, where ideas are fresh and fearless.

“Younger people don’t know boundaries,” said Boca Raton patent attorney Jon Gibbons, who works with students and teacher Joan DeLuca, a former engineer at Motorola who boasts 37 patents. “And they’re not afraid to push every button.”

About eight groups of students with inventions, which are sealed under a nondisclosure contract, hope they have as much success as their predecessors. In December, Gibbons and patent attorney Jeff Giunta will join a panel of engineers to select the best patent from this year’s class.

Bettina Anderson, the only girl in the class, said she knows the secret to a great invention.

“It’s seeing a problem and fixing it,” said Anderson, 17, who launched a hair accessory business with her twin sister.

The Palm Beach, Fla., native agreed the patent agency should look toward young people for its next big gadget.

“We’re just more observant,” Anderson said. “Someone older may not question what they see.”

Krejcarek said they plan to perform field tests on the inserts. Then the young men will look for a producer to make molds. Krejcarek said the team dreams of selling the patent to a sports market and making royalty fees. But before they make it to market, the students will have some selling to do.

Frank Hepler, a high school football coach in Plantation, Fla., said he watches his players tip over water coolers all the time to get the last drop, but he doesn’t know if he would invest in the discs.

“It’s not something that would be at the top of my list,” Hepler said. “It’s an awesome thing they had the ingenuity to do that. But we probably wouldn’t get them because of our financial situation. It would probably be a luxury.”

—

(c) 2004 South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Visit the Sun-Sentinel on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun-sentinel.com/

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

—–

PHOTO (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099):