Kirkwood students pitch potential business plans

High school juniors and seniors at Kirkwood’s Jones Regional Center took part in a new course that allowed them to showcase their business sense. 

“STEM Innovator” is curriculum that was designed by Dr. Leslie Flynn with the University of Iowa. This is the first time it’s been used at JREC. 

This course, according to co- instructor Dr. Lisa Stadtmueller, “empowered students to innovate and problem solve, both important skills for life.” In this initiative-based class, students worked on projects with area businesses or developed their own ideas. 

The 14 students divided into four teams to produce one new innovation and three products to benefit existing businesses. Industry-specific mentors were asked to provide guidance to each group throughout the semester-long course 

“They had to follow basic business practices,” said Stadtmueller. 

The other co-instructor was Jenny Scott. 

On April 30, the students presented their business pitch ideas. 

IV Tubing 

This group consisted of Tirah Fader, Marshall Cordes and Dara Hoskins. 

“Have you ever considered the possibility of being poisoned inside a hospital?” asked Fader. “This crisis could easily be averted if a nurse came in and changed the IV tube on time. But due to the busy minds of nurses today, it’s becoming a lot more difficult to do.” 

Fader explained that nurses have so much on their minds, so much on their plate on a daily basis, that they’ve been known to forget to change a patient’s IV bag. 

“Over time, depending on the type of medication being used, the IV tube begins to deteriorate,” added Fader. “All of the melted chemicals get pumped into our bodies for every minute that it is not taken care of properly.” 

This leads to: weakness, loss of body movement, headaches, numbing, abdominal pain, gastrointestinal bleeding and even death. 

This group spent time visiting and talking with nurses at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids for much of their information. They developed a new and improved TTI (time temperature indictor) IV bag label that is bigger than the ones used at St. Luke’s. 

“There are IV tags that are supposed to help nurses with this job. But they have proven to be rather inconveniently small and inefficient for the job,” shared Fader. 

Out of all the nurses they interviewed, 50, almost all of them said this is a problem that needs attention. 

“Why doesn’t the current solution work?” asked Hoskins. “The nurses we talked to said that the TTI labels rip, tear, don’t stick to the bag, and are hard to see.” 

Their TTI label, added Hoskins, “will actually show you how close till you need to change it.” 

The label is larger than what is currently used and hangs on the IV stand with the bag. 

“They’d easily be able to see it from a distance,” said Cordes. 

Hoskins continued, “We enhanced visuals by making them bigger and easier to see. It makes the job of the nurses easy. The medical advancement, we’re trying to make the nurses’ lives easier by saving time.” 

While the cost, 50 cents each, is much higher than what is currently on the market, Cordes said, “We believe that they would help prevent injury caused by tubes not being changed on time.” He said it’s a small price to pay to save someone’s life versus face a medical malpractice suit. 

Flynn praised the group for their product, but urged them to think about how they’d convince a hospital’s COO to purchase their product. 

Monticello Middle School 

This group included Kirstin Schaefer, Jaeden Hanssen, Tony Wallerich, and Mason Kraus. 

Their task was to come up with an idea concerning the old middle school, once the new school was completed by August 2020. 

They surveyed high school and middle school students about how often they use a recreation center and what athletics they’d like to see offered in Monticello. 

The group decided that a new and improved rec center in the middle school would ultimately be the best option. 

“We would like to make it into a rec center with all kinds of different features and different things to help out the community and bring more people in and possibly more revenue,” explained Wallerich. 

Many of the kids surveyed said they’d never been to the Berndes Center before, the current Parks and Rec facility. Wallerich said for that reason, they felt they needed to expand on the rec offerings. 

In terms of what the youth said they wanted to see offered at a rec center, the top responses were: movie theater, archery/shooting range, weight room, indoor track, virtual reality room, and e-sports/gaming. 

Schaefer said she also contacted rec centers in Eastern Iowa to get ideas of what they offer as well. 

While transforming the middle school would come with a hefty price tag, the group researched grants to help offset the costs: Derelict Building Grant at a maximum of $50,000, and the Enhance Iowa Grant at a max of $1 million. 

The group said they need to reach out to city officials for their input and continue to expand their survey results. 

“We need to continue our surveys to see what other people think, outside of the local youth population,” said Schaefer. “We need to get older people to fill out the surveys so we have a wide range.” 

“We’re pretty dedicated to this opportunity to maybe put this into effect for our town,” added Wallerich. “Maybe this could keep people here, going to our in-town rec center versus going to other places. It would bring people here and make some more revenue.” 

School Superintendent Brian Jaeger asked why they chose to turn the middle school into a rec center. 

Wallerich said the Berndes Center has limited space. “The middle school is a perfect spot for it. It has a lot of rooms, a lot of area. It’s more centrally located in town for kids to get there. It’s more convenient.” 

Find It 

This group included Sophie Gray, Robbie Holmes, Elijah Fleming, and Kyle Koppes. 

They came up with a kiosk that would help grocery store customers find exactly what they are looking for while in the store. 

“Raise your hand if you’ve ever had problems finding something in a grocery store. According to our surveys, 145 people surveyed out of 162 said that they had this problem too,” said Gray. “This is clearly a universal problem that should be solved. That’s why we created the ‘Find It’ kiosk.” 

Holmes added, “It’s obviously a big issue. 72.2 percent said they usually ask an employee for assistance. 30 percent said that they just don’t purchase the item if they can’t find it.” 

The kiosk would be run by a tablet that’s synced to the particular store. It would cost $2,000 to purchase or $200 per month to rent. At a $700 investment, the group figured they’d make about $1,300 in profit. 

“It’ll save time,” said Fleming. “So you don’t have to spend hours in the store. It’s also convenient when you can’t find an employee.” 

Gray added, “Stores would value from the kiosk because they would know what’s in demand by the searches.” 

Initially, the group considered a mobile phone app, but found that might not be a wise decision based on customer age and mobile phone ability. The group sought much of their input from Monticello’s Fareway. Flynn urged them to see direct customer feedback as well. 

While there are some competitive apps out there, Holmes said of Find It, “Our kiosk is an easily accessed tablet in the store that will show you exactly where the item is and tell you what items are in stock or if they don’t have it. It also gives coupon deals for what’s on sale that week.” 

Young & In Check 

This group consisted of Alyssa Silver, Chase Van Amerongen and Gabrielle Cruise. 

This group partnered with the website “Listotic” to help bring in a younger base. 

Listotic offers tips, trends and top 10 lists. 

“Their (Listotic’s) audience right now is middle-age women,” said Cruise. “Young & In Check is a website and we’re going to try to get the attention of the younger generation and guide them to Listotic. Our target market is teenagers and young adults, 15-24 years of age.” 

Young & In Check would contain personal blogs of the group members. They would also have paid advertising and links to Listotics. 

“From the results we were able to find topics to put on our website to attract younger generations,” said Silver. 

The site would offer an Internet and mobile app version. The group said they would advertise it using Instagram, the top social media app used by the people surveyed. 

“We cover multiple topics such as sports, movies, social trends,” explained Van Amerongen. Already since their site has been live, they’ve seen almost 70 views. 

While they only surveyed high-school-age people, the group also wants to expand that to include college-age as well. 

“I love that you’re partnering with something that’s already working,” praised Flynn. “But what evidence do you have that people want to be ‘young and in check?’” 

Van Amerongen responded, “Our surveys that we got our data from our high school, 15-19 year olds. They want to be able to have news and unfortunately don’t know where to go.” 

Due to the success of this course and ongoing student interest, JREC will be offering it again in the spring of 2020.