Inventanooga brought 21 teams and more than 70 students from schools in Hamilton, Bradley and Oconee counties to UTC to make presentations in front of a panel of judges. Photo of the STEM School of Chattanooga C.U.B.E. team by Katrina Craven.
Working at home can come with its share of distractions. Barking dogs. Crying babies. Quarreling siblings.
Oh, and cute squirrels.
“Her dad has a makeshift home office,” said Eliana Berger, pointing at Arna Stamper, “but he gets distracted by all the kids and by things going on outside the window. He gets distracted by squirrels.”
Stamper doesn’t disagree.
Time to call in C.U.B.E.
An acronym for Collapsible Unit Based Environment, it’s two walls hinged together that can fold together when not needed and fold out in the corner of a room, creating a four-sided cubicle to separate a person from dogs, babies, sirens and, yes, squirrels.
The concept was innovative enough to win top prize in Inventanooga 2023, held at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Wednesday, Dec. 13.
C.U.B.E team members Berger, Stamper, Aidan Farnsworth and Taylor Boyd are seniors at STEM School Chattanooga and—by accruing the most points from the competition’s judges across all presentations—each was awarded a $2,000 scholarship to the Gary W. Rollins College of Business.
Inventanooga brought 21 teams and more than 70 students from schools in Hamilton, Bradley and Oconee counties to UTC. Both middle and high school students participated, pitching business ideas they formulated, researched and, in some cases, produced prototypes.
“We want to host this event as part of helping the young entrepreneur develop their creativity and their skills into a real business,” said Dr. Subin Im, head of the Rollins College of Business Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship. “We just tell them that we are here to help them so a lot of them have the motivation to stay in Chattanooga, and we can help them to prosper.
“We want them to know Chattanooga is a great entrepreneurial community. We have all the resources and all the players and the ecosystem.”
Proposals at Inventanooga included an app that keeps continuous track of school buses so students will know if their bus is running on time, late or early. Another created a hydroelectric generator that runs on the water in house gutters. Still another proposed a writing pen that prevents hand cramps and is made out of biodegradable plastic so, when it gets thrown out because it’s causing hand cramps, it won’t hurt the environment.
The proposals were judged by local business owners, entrepreneurs and others with experience in product creation and promotion. Organizers said Inventanooga provided a chance for the students to experience what it’s like to pitch an idea in real-world circumstances and receive professional feedback.
“They’re being treated as professionals today,” said Kyle Carrasco, program director of Inventanooga and a teacher at STEM School Chattanooga. “I’m hoping that they’ll just learn how to have confidence in their ideas. Ultimately, I hope that they have a great day being able to present their own original ideas.
“For all intents and purposes, every kid knows now how to successfully problem solve; they’ve proven that through this project. Their presentation today is a celebration of that work.”
The competition had three categories for pitches: Ideators, Designers and Executives.
- Ideators researched a real-world problem and came up with a solution. First place went to Emergenshield. Created by Jamiee Davis and Korianna Lewis from East Hamilton High School, it’s a fast-action, remote-controlled, bulletproof shield to protect classrooms from school shootings.
- Designers researched a solution to a real-world problem just like Ideators—but also provided a prototype as proof of the concept. First place went to the app Unwind, created by East Hamilton Middle School students Dania Karrar, Grace Conley and Layla Freeman. It’s designed to help students ease anxiety and stress by communicating immediately with school counselors.
- Executives followed the leads of Ideators and Designers and then took it a step further by creating a business plan around their idea. However, there were so many good ideas in this category that two first-place winners were chosen: C.U.B.E. and Caver’s Guidebook.
Caver’s Guidebook, created by STEM School Chattanooga students Sarah Bolus, Isaac Goins, Xander Robillard and Connor Vinson, is a website and booklet that helps cavers keep up with news, safety issues, and general information for local cavers before they plunge in.
STEM School Chattanooga had been holding its own version of Inventanooga for several years, school principal Jim David said. Last year, to grow the event, the school sought community collaboration with the help of the Rollins College of Business and others.
Along with the STEM School and UTC, sponsors of the 2023 competition were Hamilton County Schools, the Public Education Foundation, the Junior League of Chattanooga and Top Flight paper company.
“When kids leave school, we want them to be problem solvers,” David said. “We want kids to not wait until the boss says, ‘Do X, Y, Z.’ We want the boss to be able to say, ‘Here’s the problem,’ and the kid says, ‘I don’t know how to solve that, but I’ve done these 12 other things. I bet I can figure it out.’”
In the competition, students start with a real-world problem and develop a way to address the issue. Tackling global warming, for instance, is too big a problem to easily solve, David explained. Instead, the students break down the problem to a local perspective.
“They start large and they narrow it down because you can’t solve world stuff,” he said.
Leaunnen Wills, D’Asia Price and Lillian Pouncy said they all had experienced the frustration of missing the school bus because it came earlier than expected or waiting a long time because something caused it to be late.
“It varies based on weather, car accidents. Literally anything can cause it to be early or late,” Wills said.
Their product, Fasttrack, is an app that will let school administrators quickly relay information about buses’ schedules on a day-to-day basis.
“Whenever they find out about a delay, however early in the morning, they can pretty much immediately update the app and just let the bus riders and the parents know when the bus will get there,” Wills said.
For C.U.B.E., the team started with a problem that affects many people daily, including those who worked from home during the pandemic.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, I struggled to work from home,” Farnsworth said. “I had a lot of issues separating my work and home life. I found it hard to sit at a desk in my room where my bed is and not lay down in my bed and stay there, and you can’t do work from your bed.”
Learn More
Gary W. Rollins College of Business
UTC Marketing and Entrepreneurship
Inventanooga photo gallery by Katrina Craven
Kyle Carrasco, center, program director of Inventanooga and a teacher at STEM School Chattanooga, at a morning discussion in the UTC Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
