(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Ethan Johnson, and I'm here to present to you Johnson Farms.

This is an indoor automated farm.

It's a CEA, which means controlled environment agriculture.

All that that means is that it's indoors, away from the elements, God's country, so you can have an optimum growing environment for anything that you decide to grow.

- At Venue 931, we offer a modern indoor event space of various sizes and an outdoor chair field that can serve as an event space.

Each space is designed to cater to our clients' unique preferences and specifications.

- More than 78% of the people are struggling to find what to watch or read next.

That's why I founded Artics, a perfect platform that lets you share and discover your favorite entertainments more efficiently, so that way you don't have to waste your time and money anymore.

- ThePot.

is a group transactional app that allows users to put money into a fund.

And now you can use this application to purchase your in-person and online transactions, and once the trip is over, you can divvy up the money amongst to the rest of y'all.

- My solution is a background check database that helps future employers, nonprofit organizations, and common citizens be able to recognize who these individuals are, no matter where they're located.

This system can even help establish a pattern for those who haven't been convicted.

(upbeat music) - 68 Seconds.

68 seconds.

Every 68 seconds, somebody is sexually assaulted by the use of a date rape drug.

1 out of 6 women and 1 out 10 men are sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

Even scarier, only 25 out of 1,000 rapists are convicted of this malicious crime a year.

Hearing these statistics, I was bound to make a change and won't stop innovating until there is one.

Hi, my name is Bailee Kauffman.

I'm a senior here at Tennessee Tech University.

And today, I present to you all SafeSTICK.

It's as simple as a sticker, but has the potential to save one's life.

Not only do I wanna present to you all my product today, but I would like to share my testimony.

I too am a survivor of sexual assault, and if that resonates with anyone else in this room, I want you to know I hear you, I see you, and I believe you.

And together, we'll make a safer today, a safer tomorrow, and safer generations to come.

I believe SafeSTICK has the potential to do just that.

Drug-facilitated sexual assault happens when a predator slips an unwanted substance into somebody's drink.

This can be a variety of substances, but it causes symptoms to the user to make them not be able to say yes or no.

Currently, males and females do not have a prevention product that is affordable and easy to access at the consumer's point of purchasing a drink.

Sexual assault has lifelong physical, emotional, and mental effects on a society.

Here are some of the symptoms of drink spiking: blurred vision, memory loss, vomiting, unconsciousness, robberies, and even death.

My solution to this, I know I cannot change people, but I can go to the problem and try to have prevention to it.

SafeSTICK is designed to mimic an ordinary sticker, but unlike a typical sticker, it's created to prevent danger to one's life.

SafeSTICK serves as a drink protector to deter drink spiking.

Users would place the sticker over their drink and easily stick the straw into it.

If it's sold to bars and restaurants, the bartender could simply ask the user, "Would you like a sticker with your drink?"

They could say yes or no, and if they said yes, they would put it on their drink and be able to feel like they are in control of their life and in their drink.

It's a single use.

It's easy to apply.

It has a fast application time.

It's eco-friendly.

It gives the user a sense of control, safety, and protection, and protects you from any unwanted substances in your drink.

Here's an example of my prototype.

This is captured at Spankies in Cookeville, Tennessee.

My customer identified, "I'd be selling to bars, restaurants, college campuses, music events, and Greek life organizations."

The users would be people who enjoy a social drinking environment and want to stay safe.

The users are ages 21 to 24 and 35 to 44.

I believe selling to bars and restaurants will be able to drive demand for bars because people want a safe place to be.

They don't want to go to a bar and feel like something could happen to them.

The market size has the potential to be extremely large, as the US bar and nightclub industry holds roughly over 70,000 establishments with an annual revenue of $20 billion.

I believe having direct user contact in a bar or a restaurant or a college campus would be able to create a wide variety of safe social drinking environments around the world.

It reaches a larger market, and it's convenient for users.

My branding has a teal ribbon on the inside where the straw would be inserted into the ribbon.

The ribbon symbolizes prevent sexual assaults, and it's a national symbol of the month April.

Buyers would have the opportunity to customize the sticker to fit to their branding.

Here is an example for Tech.

ASPIRES is an organization on Tech's campus right now, and they want to work with me after this competition to be able to pass out these stickers to the people in their organization.

And I believe this can also be a groundbreaking change for other organizations and college campuses as well.

I used blue because it represents life, white because it represents safety, and black because it represents control.

And that's what I want the users to feel when they have a sticker on their drink.

My go-to market, I have a five-step strategy.

I will highlight the benefits, target the decision makers, leverage social media through different social media accounts, SEO, and Google Ads.

I will attend industry events and offer promotions.

I know that, targeting both males and females, you will have to use a different language for both, but there is a way to do that.

Year one, SafeSTICK market to bars, restaurants, college campuses, and the Upper Cumberland area.

My revenue model.

For my current prototype, I was able to buy material for a little over $5 for 30 sheets.

Each sheet fit four stickers, resulting in 120 stickers made.

So roughly, I can produce each sticker for under a penny.

The social impact is endless.

SafeSTICK will serve as a prevention tool to prevent drink spiking and become a groundbreaking product that is easy, accessible, wherever the user is at.

It will promote and create security and protection, leading to an increase in trust and confidence in communities.

Eventually, I would like to sell to individual consumers, where they're able to bring it to the event that they're attending.

Currently, there are some products on the market that serve as detection tools.

But detection tools may have some legal risks if they were handed out at a bar or at a restaurant.

If a detection tool wasn't able to pick up the chemicals in the drink, it could fall back on the industry.

But with the sticker, it's preventing any unwanted substance from going into your drink.

So I ask you today, are you ready to create a safer today, a safer tomorrow, and safer generations to come?

Are you ready to stick, sip, survive?

Thank you.

(audience applauds) - So sort of a two-pronged question here.

The adhesive that puts it on a cup or a glass, obviously, that has to be secure enough where it can't be taken off easily.

How difficult is it for the actual establishments to remove that from their glassware?

- My current prototype, if you saw at the trade show, it was actually extremely easy for me to remove it, but it's not extremely easy for me to break into it.

And that is a competitive advantage instead of, there's a company in the UK right now that makes aluminum foil stickers, but you can easily stick your finger into it, breaking into the drink.

Establishments would be able to easily remove this, and it doesn't leave a residue on the cup.

If you're looking into bars and what they're giving out to a mass group of people, typically, it is a plastic cup, so you're throwing it away.

- I think you may have alluded to it just a little bit, but I wanna reiterate.

Obviously, there could potentially be some liability with this for businesses because they may not want to admit that this could happen on their premises.

Obviously, you know, they can't control that.

Have you talked with them about that sort of a liability issue?

Are they willing to have the product to forego that?

- Thank you.

Absolutely.

I think the way that bartenders or restaurants, or even college campuses, would go about it is they would ask the user, do you want a sticker with your drink?

So it's leaving it up to the user to say yes or no.

And the way that this would work, it would be partners.

So bars and restaurants would be able to advertise it on their front door, that we do distribute SafeSTICK, and this is a safe social drinking environment, which can drive demand for those bars.

But they're very aware, the user would be aware and they would be consenting, in saying yes if they want the sticker.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Hi everybody.

My name is Bailey Dozier, and today I'll be talking to you about my innovation, beam.

Like I said, my name is Bailey.

I'm graduating from Tennessee Tech University in just 20 days.

Hopefully.

Sorry, Mom.

All right.

While I've been here at Tennessee Tech, I've been involved in the cheerleading team.

I'm involved in Greek life.

I've also been involved in other campus clubs and organizations.

But I'm here today to talk to you guys, not about my degree I've been working for the past four years, but a career I've been working for for the past 12 years.

If you ask me what my degree is in in 20 days, I'll say it's in marketing.

But if you ask me what I do for a living, I'm a musician.

In the music industry, the local live music industry, there can be some challenges.

Being a Nashville native, you can throw a rock and hit a live music venue.

There's actually over 180 from here to Broadway.

That's over 190,000 sets being performed annually.

From an outsider looking in, you can think it's really easy to book just a 30-minute set in one of those venues.

It's actually almost the opposite of the truth.

With most of those venues keeping their artist pools between 15 to 25 artists, it can be really hard to book even a small set at some of those venues.

Some of the other areas are, after years of technology, we still use word of mouth for most of our booking.

So that's definitely one of the flaws, along with safety issues.

And some amazing talent can't even get their foot in the door.

As a rising artist, a lot of new venues won't book me as an artist until I'm established.

But you can't get established until you've booked a venue.

This is a direct quote from an artist currently working in the industry.

"I wish I had a way to broadcast my abilities to more places than Cookeville so I wouldn't have to rely so heavily on word of mouth in a world of advanced technology."

And this is actually one of my friends currently working in the Cookeville circuit.

This is where the idea for beam came from.

beam is the first subscription-based app that connects artists to their live local music venues.

beam is designed with artists in mind.

With a low monthly subscription that we'll talk about later, artists can easily afford applying for an unlimited amount of venues for verification.

There's benefits for both artists and venues as well.

The best part about beam, like myself today, it's currently a solo act on the market.

There's a similar coding structure currently available, which is called Backstage, but Backstage is not a competitor because it only applies to models, actors, and the live theater industry.

But this is a multi-billion-dollar company that has similar coding to beam.

So beam can slide right into this market and fill a gap that Backstage currently has.

Our target market, 16 to 30 years of age.

These are kids getting ready to graduate high school, starting to be asked the great question, what are you gonna do when you're done?

And now they want a serious answer.

So when you're starting to graduate high school, let's say you're playing music with friends, you're playing in your garage, now what?

You can subscribe to beam and start applying.

Be your first manager in the industry.

On the other side of the spectrum, 30 years of age.

These are artists that have talent and had potential, but when the bills started piling up, they had to go get a job.

We wanna bring them back to the music industry so they can pursue their passion and do what they were created to do.

We're also targeting local C-List artists.

Now, what I mean by this is these are artists who you know them when you go to Spankies or wherever your local venues are, but they're not going much further past their local venues.

We wanna help them do that.

Now, let's get down to revenue.

How is beam gonna make money?

Monthly subscriptions.

For an artist, it's gonna be $12 a month.

And like I said, that's unlimited applications.

This is your first manager in the industry.

If you wanna apply to 150 venues in a month, you can do that for a flat cost of $12.

For venues, $20 a month.

You can book your next six months of sets for $20 and let beam do the work for you.

I've already reached out to venues and artists, and they're already so excited about beam.

For venues, the first big question asked is, "I already pay a booker.

What do I need beam for?"

This is not to replace a booker.

This is to streamline the process of your venue in order to bring fresh, new talent to fall in love with your already amazing venue.

And on the artist side, like I've mentioned, this is your first manager.

This is your chance.

So when you have a piece, you have music, you have something you love, and the next question is, "Now what?"

with beam, you know what the answer is.

In a perfect world, if beam had a majority of the artists and venues from here to Nashville, we'd be bringing in $1.7 million annually.

Think of the possibilities if we went nationwide.

We can level up with Backstage and be a billion-dollar company.

Let's go together and make an account.

Go in the future with me for a little bit.

This is what beam would look like on an Apple phone.

Go into our application.

Oh, there we go.

And we're gonna log in.

This is a blank artist account, a blank canvas for your career.

Once we fill it out, we can see a check mark has been added to the profile.

This is a chance for an artist to be verified so when they're applying to venues, they know that when a venue looks at it, they've been vetted by beam, and they're getting a quality artist.

There's also a place for photos, videos, and reviews by the venues.

This is your first impression.

So with beam, we wanna make sure it's the best it can possibly be.

Now let's go and apply for a gig.

We have some local venues here in Cookeville, but today, we're gonna apply to Midtown Social.

On Midtown Social's page, we can see they're verified.

We have photos, videos, a stage setup so we can see their equipment, and other reviews from artists as well.

There's a section for a cover letter.

Here at Tennessee Tech, we learn you never apply to something without a cover letter.

So we make sure we have a spot for that as well.

Now, when we go and apply, we can continue to apply.

It's unlimited applications for that monthly subscription.

We can keep applying.

But let's go back to the presentation for a minute.

What is the social impact?

Safety, safety, safety.

This verification feature on beam will allow artists to have peace of mind knowing they have a contact photo and a contact phone number when they go into a new venue so they have somebody to go to.

On the venue side, they can have confidence knowing they're bringing in new, fresh talent, and they're getting quality.

It's not somebody trying to pretend to be something they're not.

They can check videos, photos, social media, and so much more.

Now, let's check back in with our audition.

We have a notification.

Let's see what it says.

And we booked the gig.

It looks like we're playing Midtown Social tonight from 9:00 to 9:30.

And they even wrote us a cover letter saying if we accept, they'll give us that contact information.

Help me revolutionize the industry.

And with beam, help me make others' light shine.

With beam, it's your time to shine.

Any questions?

(audience applauds) (audience member cheers) - I don't know about the industry all that much, so I just had a couple of questions about the industry in general and how this would meet expectations on the artist's end.

I know they're starving artists.

So are they competing against each other or supporting each other?

Is there gonna be an advanced way for...

I know in social media there are algorithms for increasing your profiles.

Is that something you're looking at, et cetera?

- Absolutely.

So in the hiring process, if you're applying for just a standard office job, there obviously is a level of competition.

You have resumes that can be super similar, and we have different things that can set us apart in a normal hiring process.

So definitely some things that can help an artist kind of be at the top of those lists when a booker goes and look at on the venue side, is those cover letters, is the verification aspect.

Once an artist fully completes their profile, and there will be settings within beam to cue them and prompt them to do that, they can go into the verification for their profile, and that definitely helps them get in the viewers' eyes faster.

(upbeat music) (audience applauds) - Is this (faintly speaking)?

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Jake Officer.

I'm a freshman engineering student here at Tennessee Tech, and I wanna present to you today my invention, the Crate Buddy.

With gas prices reaching record-high levels in the past two years, everyone is looking for some way to save money at the pump.

Whether it's finally breaking down and getting a hybrid vehicle or trying to find a different way to commute to work, everyone's looking for something.

But if we look internationally, some countries such as China, India, the Netherlands, and a lot of countries in the EU, they already have a solution: The bicycle.

The bicycle is a great alternative to gas-powered vehicles.

It's eco-friendly, it's great for exercise, and they're extremely low cost.

I myself ride a bicycle every day when I'm going to and from class, except there's one critical problem with bicycles, and that's storage capacities.

Now, you could buy a bike bag, as most people tend to do, except bike bags have three major problems.

Number one is that they're unsustainable.

The plastics and fabrics used in bike bags often get thrown into landfills once the product reaches end of life.

Number two, they're extremely expensive.

A standard bike bag costs 90 to 100 dollars, with a high-quality one costing 350.

In areas like India and China, where the standard household income is from 156 to 611 US dollars per year, this is unthinkable to purchase a bike bag for $350.

And finally, they're extremely unefficient.

A bike bag holds about six liters of storage.

And I don't know about you, but if I'm going to the grocery store, my snacks alone could not fit in six liters worth of storage.

So many people turn to the milk crate.

A milk crate is very easy to get.

You can get one from a grocery store, shipping containers.

I sometimes take them from the side of the road.

You can find them anywhere.

They're extremely low cost, and they're more eco-friendly because you're not putting more waste back into the production cycle.

That also leads to the problem of, how do we put the milk crate on the bicycle?

You can use zip ties, which will snap and throw your stuff everywhere when you hit a bump.

You can use bungee cords, which will lose their elasticity when it rains, also leaving your stuff to spill everywhere.

Or you could use the rat nest monstrosity that is on many college students' bikes today that is a combination of zip ties and bungee cords that either poke a hole in your bag or make everyone think that you're crazy.

That's where the Crate Buddy comes into play.

The Crate Buddy's patent pending design allows for the quick and secure attachment and detachment of a milk crate to a bicycle.

You simply turn the lock and bar to the locked position, attach it to your bike, go get your groceries, your backpack, go through your work, go through your day, do whatever you need to do, and at the end of the day, simply turn to the unlocked position, remove the crate, and you're good to go.

In places like India, Amsterdam, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Nashville, places where bicycles are the dominant form of transportation, this is essential for grocery shopping.

You take your bicycle to the grocery store, load up your crate with all the groceries that you need, go back home.

You already have something to carry the groceries.

No plastic bags needed, no extra trips needed.

No trying to carry everything like you are Hulk Hogan and failing horribly.

I've done a lot of market research into this as well.

The bicycle market currently globally takes up 34% of the revenue share, with the bicycle market being a $64.6 billion industry.

With bicycles only on the rise, this means the need for storage and accessories is paramount, and something has to be done.

I also did some market research here at Tech's campus as well, not just internationally.

On Tech's campus, I interviewed 22 students about their interest in the product, how much they'd be willing to pay, and comments they had.

Of the 22 students I interviewed, 71% said they would pay over $7 for the product, with the average price willingness to pay being $12.50.

Currently, with our 3D-printed models, we have a landed cost of $1.50.

And with better manufacturing practices that we are already looking into, we can get our landed production cost down to 60 cents per unit.

That is roughly 88% to 92% profit margin for this product, while still allowing the product to be at low enough cost at low-income areas, college students, and those where the value of their dollar is not as valuable as here in the United States, to still be able to purchase this product.

Now, I spoke a little bit about our prototypes.

We've gone through three prototyping stages so far.

The first was using 3D-printed PLA plastic, which you can see through the blue model up on the screen.

This was great.

It was quick and it was cheap.

Except with cheap goes with cheap quality.

You get what you pay for.

With this, there was a lot of scratching, breakage, and it just was not very durable when on the bike.

Next, we had the PETG plastic.

This was more durable than the PLA, not that much more expensive, and extremely sturdy.

The issue, however, was that the bolt broke off when it vibrated.

So finally, in our current stage, we are on the carbon fiber stage.

With the carbon fiber stage, we are noticing that it is extremely durable, both with vibration, roughness of bike riding, and stability in holding the bike rack.

But we don't wanna stop here.

We want to go and invest in different metals to cast these out of: stainless steel, brass, bronze, aluminum.

Different applications for different areas of the world where this could be marketed.

And once we start casting these and manufacturing them using machine-tooled die designs, we can get our costs down to 60 cents or even less.

Our company also has a plan of a 10-year development.

Right now we are in the first local stage.

We wanna start our marketing on the local level.

The Tennessee Tech Bike Club has already offered to take some versions of the Crate Buddy and give me market research.

They're gonna use them, let me know how they feel, talk to their friends about it, and market them at the local level.

As well as this, we're gonna use social media to start our beginning marketing campaign.

I work for Tennessee Tech's publicity and marketing office.

I also run a social media for a local church in Sparta, Tennessee.

I understand how the marketing works.

I understand how social media works.

I understand how to blow this up, what tags to do, and how to market it.

That's how we're gonna start.

Stage two is we're gonna make our very own milk crate that's brandable.

Companies like DoorDash, Post Service, Postmates, Uber Eats, they're all gonna be able to have their own custom design crate that markets them and markets us.

And at the same time, we're gonna develop a food delivery heat pad.

For places like California or Nashville where you have to DoorDash your food, it's always cold.

And let's be honest, McDonald's at midnight that's cold, not the move.

So our plan is to create something that will heat the food so it's always fresh and always ready.

And finally, we want to open up our own Amazon store so we can be direct-to-consumer, use television and YouTube ads to promote better publicity for us, and look at international shipping.

So when you're looking for bikes and when you're looking to make the industry better, more eco-friendly, and sustainable for everyone involved, find a good buddy, find Crate Buddy.

Any questions?

(audience applauds) - So you mentioned both Nashville and Amsterdam.

Those two cities are vastly different in their approach to bicycle infrastructure, with the Netherlands probably being a decade or two beyond what Nashville's cycling infrastructure is right now.

How are you going to account in your strategy, specifically your marketing, for the fact that where you're rolling this out is not as interested in cycling as, say, some of your international markets?

- Yeah, so the great part about the Crate Buddy is the versatility of where you can market it, right?

So in Nashville, our marketing strategy is going to be less as a necessity, more as leisure activity.

So in Nashville right now, the ride share percentage has gone up astronomically in the last few years.

Bicycle riding in the US market has actually increased by 8.7%, I believe, with the electric bike market increasing by 262% in the last two years.

So domestically, we're gonna market as this is a way to better transport your items, both with your electric bike and your manual-powered cycling.

- Will your cost per P's change as you change the type of material that you use?

- Yes.

So currently with carbon fiber, PETG, which is what we're currently using, the cost per unit is 75 cents, which leads to the $1.50 total cost for the package.

Stainless steel will drop it down to about 30 cents.

Brass will drop it to about 45 cents.

And copper alone and things like that will take it up to about 70 cents.

(upbeat music) - Please join me once again in thanking all of our student teams competing today, our guest speakers, generous donors, and amazing judges.

Congratulations, and great work to all of you.

This is officially the end of Eagle Works 2023.

Thank you for your continued support.

Have a great Saturday evening, and we'll see you next year.

(audience cheers) (audience members cheer) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music)