STEM Success Story: How Two Students Engineered a Shoelace Solution

What happens when two eighth-grade students notice a problem during volleyball matches? They create an award-winning invention that could soon hit store shelves nationwide.

Meet Sam Priest and Olivia Adams, volleyball players turned inventors who developed the "Untie Knot" – an elegantly simple silicone band that prevents shoelaces from coming untied during physical activity. Their invention journey began when they witnessed a teammate's shoe come untied during a match, causing an awkward game stoppage.

Through their school's Inventionland Education course, these young innovators learned to apply observational skills, research, and creative problem-solving to address this everyday annoyance. Through multiple prototypes, they discovered that shoelaces come untied through repeated impact forces during running or walking. Their solution? A stretchy silicone band that securely wraps around the knot to keep it tight.

The most remarkable aspect of Sam and Olivia's story isn't just their clever invention, but how the experience transformed their confidence and future outlook. Before the course, neither considered themselves inventors or had interest in STEM careers. Now, they have a company in Texas interested in bringing their product to market. Their success showcases the power of applied learning – combining mathematics, language arts, design, and science to solve real-world problems.

Their story demonstrates why hands-on STEM education deserves priority in our schools. It teaches not just technical knowledge but crucial life skills: creative thinking, collaboration, perseverance, and effective communication. As Sam advises future inventors: "Just be creative and share a lot of ideas. We had no clue what we were going to make when we started this, but it all worked out."

Want to discover how STEM education could unlock your child's potential? Listen to Sam and Olivia's full journey in this inspiring episode.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet the Young Inventors
• 2:05 Identifying the Problem
• 4:43 Developing the Untie Knot Solution
• 7:40 The Creative Process in STEM Education
• 12:10 Winning the Invention Contest
• 18:15 From Prototype to Market Opportunity
• 22:05 Lessons Learned as Young Inventors
• 26:03 Exciting News for the Future

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome to the Tomorrow's World Today podcast. We sit down with experts, world-changing innovators, creators, and makers to explore how they're taking action to make tomorrow's world a better place for technology, science, innovation, sustainability, the arts, and more.

SPEAKER_04: 0:18

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another edition of Tomorrow's World Today. And today I have two young up-and-comers. We have Sam Priest and Olivia Adams. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02: 0:33

Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_04: 0:35

Well, they just won the big invention contest, and they're gonna kind of tell us a little bit about how this all happened. So can you tell us a little bit about your school and its participation in the Invention Land course?

SPEAKER_01: 0:51

Yeah, we have two teachers, a tech ed teacher and a computer teacher, and they're great.

SPEAKER_04: 0:57

Oh, that's a big part of it, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Teachers that are great make it easy.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02

So can you tell us a little bit about yourselves? I mean, let's let's learn a little bit about you first, Sam. What's your background?

SPEAKER_02: 1:10

I play volleyball, and that's how like we kind of came up with the idea, is from sports and stuff.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16

All right. Yeah, we both play volleyball for our school. She plays on a club team.

SPEAKER_04: 1:22

I see. So, well, since you've just started the process of looking at the problem, right, in the sport that you were playing, why don't we why don't we focus a little bit on that? In your course, did you did you learn about uh how to use observational skills and how to identify problems to come up with some sort of an idea?

SPEAKER_01: 1:43

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we actually got our idea because one of our teammates, her shoe came untied during a match, and it's like super awkward. Like you're like rushing to tie your shoe and you don't actually like get your shoe like fully tied, and it just keeps coming inside.

SPEAKER_04: 1:57

And that happened in the middle of a game? Yeah. Oh, well, that's that's pretty disruptive.

unknown: 2:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 2:02

Pretty embarrassing. I mean, do they stop the game or do they let it keep going on?

SPEAKER_01: 2:07

They just stop the game.

SPEAKER_04: 2:08

Oh, so you have to tie your shoe in front of the entire audience? Oh, well, that is a big problem. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's that that's I don't know if I'd like to do that either. Yeah. So let's so this idea is all about stopping that problem from happening, right? Can you talk a little bit about uh your idea?

SPEAKER_01: 2:26

Yeah, it literally just wraps around the knot of your shoelace. Like obviously, if you like pull it, it'll come on side, but like your shoes come on side by like forces when you like run or walk. So this like keeps your knot tight so it doesn't come on side.

SPEAKER_04: 2:41

Very nice. And I like its simplicity.

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 2:44

That's one of the things that you know I noted earlier. You know, sometimes it's sometimes it can be pretty difficult making something, let's say complex, but figuring out a way to make it simple is is tough sometimes. So can you go through the process with me a little? I mean, we now know how you discovered the problem, but you started to work on a solution. So was it in the mind, or did you see other products that you thought held things well together? Or how did you come up with this specific with this specific design? Do you recall?

SPEAKER_01: 3:20

Yeah, there was the the clip. Yeah, the we saw a clip, but it was like plastic in it. There was like a bunch of reviews how it like came unclipped. Okay. So and it wasn't stretchy, like you know, you could have like different size knots, like thicker shoelaces.

SPEAKER_04: 3:35

I see.

SPEAKER_01: 3:35

So we wanted to have it stretchy, so any size knot.

SPEAKER_04: 3:40

Nice. So it's a universal design, and it's pretty simple to make, right?

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

Yeah, really simple. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 3:45

I mean, you made quite a few prototypes. Yeah. I mean you blew the you blew the judges away, I heard. So you know, then you did a good job in there. Yeah. So did you start the course with the contest in mind?

SPEAKER_01: 4:01

No, we had no clue what we were gonna make. So we had to share our ideas, like okay.

SPEAKER_04: 4:08

So you didn't did you didn't know that there was gonna be a contest at the end of this course, or did you think there was gonna be one?

SPEAKER_02: 4:14

We knew, like he told us.

SPEAKER_01: 4:16

Ah yeah, we were just like that's so far away, like we have so much time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 4:21

It's kind of scary because you don't know if you're gonna be able to come up with an idea, huh?

SPEAKER_01: 4:25

Yeah, really. We had no clue what we were gonna make. Yeah. But here we are.

SPEAKER_04: 4:31

I think when you're in the beginning parts of this course and they're you know teaching you how to identify problems, right? You because you already have your own observational skills. That's just inside all of us. But it's how do we pull that out, right?

SPEAKER_01: 4:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 4:47

And then apply it in a way that you could help others.

SPEAKER_01: 4:50

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 4:51

Yeah. What are some of the cool things you learned in the course? And how is this different from maybe other courses you've taken in the school?

SPEAKER_02: 5:00

We had to do a lot of thinking, more thinking than like math or reading. The hardest part was coming up with an idea of to make it out of. Like the silicone idea.

SPEAKER_04: 5:15

So you had to apply thinking, your own creative thinking, not just a process of do this math problem and then you generate this solution, right? So we refer to that as applied thinking. Yeah, we had a lot of freedom, like yeah, like freedom like that can be fun. It could be a little scary if you don't really know where you're going. Yeah. Yeah. So you said one of the other challenges was figuring out the right material, right? So how do you how did you explore material science?

SPEAKER_02: 5:47

Well, we just went, we wanted it to be stretchy. Like when we first started, we knew we wanted it to be stretchy. So the first thing that came to our mind that was like durable and stretchy was silicon.

SPEAKER_04: 5:56

Silicon, okay, yeah. Yeah. Did you have silicon like in the Sometimes you have it with sports, you know, they have that stretchy tie-off. Is that where you found your silicon?

SPEAKER_01: 6:07

We just looked up like silicone sheets on Amazon.

SPEAKER_04: 6:10

Okay. Oh, so you you knew the principles of the material and then went and found your own resource, right? Yeah. Okay, great stuff. Sometimes what we'll do is we'll find it what in what we call our magic bins, and then we just start cutting and hacking. Before you know it, we actually have a raw material. So it's kind of fun to do it that way, too. Do you think this course helped you think more about your future or you know what you might want to do one day?

SPEAKER_01: 6:38

Yeah, I've like I've never tried to invent something, so this is so different, and it was super fun.

SPEAKER_04: 6:44

That's great. That's great to hear. Yeah. All right. Well, that it sounds like we have something in common. Because I was when I was your when I was your age, we were inventing all sorts of stuff. I had I had some wonderful people in my life when I was younger. So what was it like for the two of you working as a team?

SPEAKER_01: 7:01

It was it was fun because we've been friends for a while. So it was nice. Like I wouldn't want to work with anybody else. Any funny moments you can share with us?

SPEAKER_02: 7:11

Not off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_01: 7:13

It was just fun to like work with her. Like it like made me get through the time like quicker. We were talking. Like we would cut these, like we'd have the silicone sheets and cut them, and we would just talk the whole time and it would go by so fast.

SPEAKER_02: 7:26

Like we would be working on like creating prototype, and it was just like muscle memory at that point because we were just constantly using more and more. It's like we just talk about something that happened in the class yesterday or before or anything, really.

SPEAKER_04: 7:38

Isn't it amazing? And when you're inventing stuff, it's like you're in a time warp. It's like you blink your eyes and you're like, wait a minute, four hours just disappeared. How'd that happen? Yeah, we have that happen all the time. It's it's kind of funny, but it it really is like a time warp. Do you think other schools might benefit their kids? Do you think this would be something good for all schools to have?

SPEAKER_01: 8:00

Yes, for sure. It's like super creative, like it's just super fun to do.

SPEAKER_02: 8:06

I feel like it might help kids, like say they're like us and we're you get on the podcast and everything, and they'll put their name out there for maybe something in the future, like if they do pick want to become a STEM like career, then it has their name out there from when they were younger.

SPEAKER_04: 8:22

Right. Oh, and it that definitely will happen here. And you're applying things, right? So when you cut these, I noticed they're all the same size. So you had to figure out a template or you were using math somewhere along the way, right? So that's applied math. You have packaging here that has language all over it, right? So you're applying English.

SPEAKER_03: 8:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 8:43

You have different fonts and sizes of your text, so that's part of your art class. I mean, you apply you applied a lot of the different classes that you that you are in anyway, right? But you just have the freedom to play now.

SPEAKER_03: 8:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 8:58

That's fun. So what's your thought on the importance of learning STEM?

SPEAKER_02: 9:05

I think that it'll help kids like with their future. Like before this product, I don't think I could have sat down with somebody and like, I don't know, like worked and constantly worked and worked and worked just to get something done.

SPEAKER_04: 9:19

Yeah, so that collaboration, working with one another.

SPEAKER_02: 9:23

Working with another person. Like when you get older and you get a job, you're gonna have co-workers, you're gonna have to work with other people in an office.

SPEAKER_04: 9:29

That is a real skill. You that really empowers your team to be able to brainstorm better, problem solve better, right? And and learning how to be a good team member in this environment of STEM or work is probably pretty similar to what you were doing with volleyball, right? So you you probably have a pretty good connection with your other volleyball teammates, right?

SPEAKER_01: 9:54

So Yeah, we actually made them, she made her team wear these.

SPEAKER_02: 9:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 9:58

Oh really?

SPEAKER_02: 9:58

Yeah, toilet my two-day toilet in West Virginia and the whole team wore them.

SPEAKER_04: 10:02

And how'd that go?

SPEAKER_02: 10:03

It worked, they worked, we stayed tied. I stayed tied.

SPEAKER_04: 10:06

Did you win?

SPEAKER_02: 10:07

No, we got second. We got second in the market.

SPEAKER_04: 10:12

Darn. All right. So how would you like motivate or encourage other students to do inventing, let's say? How would if you were if you had the opportunity to reach out to other students around the country, what what do you think might get them engaged?

SPEAKER_02: 10:30

It's uh it's hard to sit down at first with somebody and just brainstorm without like I I always was kept waiting for like the hands-on part. It's hard to just sit down and think about it and draw it out, but I just kept looking at like the end result, like the bigger picture. Yeah. And like where we'd end up if we won, like if we did.

SPEAKER_04: 10:48

Okay, so you worked backwards from the success. So you were looking at I want to achieve this objective, and you worked backwards to f to it.

SPEAKER_03: 10:58

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 10:59

That's that's a really good way to do it. And then you break it up into pieces, right? And chase your goals. Yeah, very nice. So if you were to say to kids out there why they should participate, why? Why should they do this?

SPEAKER_01: 11:12

Um, super fun. Like we didn't think we would be here and we're here. Like you never know what can happen.

SPEAKER_02: 11:18

It really it also grew me and Olivia together for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 11:22

You know, why do you think STEM and STEAM education is like so important in our schools today?

SPEAKER_02: 11:29

It can like help you to build a bigger career once you get out of high school and once you get older.

SPEAKER_04: 11:35

Yeah. For me, I think it also helps me with just life in general. You have a better understanding of like how the world works, you know, science, technology, engineering, math, and then you throw in art, it's pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_01: 11:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 11:49

Yeah. Do you need to be a STEM or STEAM expert to take this course?

SPEAKER_01: 11:53

No, we had no idea what this was, but it was a learning experience for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 11:59

We had no idea what we were getting to when we started.

SPEAKER_04: 12:02

So you learned how to actually develop an idea, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01: 12:05

Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 12:06

Yeah. Was that exciting?

SPEAKER_01: 12:08

Yeah, it was much fun.

SPEAKER_04: 12:10

Yeah. I think it is too. Can you talk about how your teacher or teachers supported you through the process?

SPEAKER_02: 12:18

It was nice having two teachers with two different classes. Like I feel like some of the kids thought they were limited only to the teacher that they were assigned to. But we we went and presented to our actual teacher and then the other teacher to get feedback from both of them. Yeah. Because maybe one thought something and the other thought something completely different. Yeah. Yes. And it gave us like two different perspectives on the product.

SPEAKER_04: 12:44

Nice. And those two teachers that that taught you the course, did they uh did they specialize in a specific area or yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:53

One is tech ed and then one is computer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 12:57

Okay. So your te so your school went through uh what's called professional development, right? And that that they were learning the invention land education course. And then so now they're applying it as well in a school with you.

SPEAKER_03: 13:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 13:09

Right. Yeah. Okay. And then how did your teacher inspire you to uh push further? And what challenges did you face along the way?

SPEAKER_02: 13:19

Both of them really helped us. Like if we were like struggling with a problem, they tried to help us like see the bigger idea, the bigger picture, and give us like a solution or another idea.

SPEAKER_03: 13:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01: 13:31

Yeah, for sure. They gave us so like so many ideas, and if it didn't work, we just moved on and tried to figure something else out.

SPEAKER_04: 13:38

Gotcha. And so in this situation, you learned how to look at a problem out there in the world, didn't you? And you wanted to make something better for people.

SPEAKER_03: 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 13:50

Right? And you you discovered this on a field of sports, didn't you? Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about you know how you utilized what you were learning in the course? Like how to utilize your observational abilities, ideation, coming up with ideas, let's say maybe making a model. How did all of that shape your progress on this project?

SPEAKER_02: 14:18

We started with like a really long piece of silicone with many holes in it. And when we tried it out, like on the actual tennis shoe, we realized that it wasn't very ideal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 14:28

I see.

SPEAKER_02: 14:28

And then we kept getting smaller, like we got to this size but with two holes in it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:34

And we realized it was just the silicone was stretchy, so we really just needed one hole. Yeah. And that was perfect.

SPEAKER_04: 14:41

I see. So the untie knot, which is what we're talking about today, what you're saying is now you you basically fail what we refer to that as we failed our way forward. Yeah. You were building and applying and trying, right? And then saying, no, that's not working well enough.

SPEAKER_03: 14:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 14:59

Let me keep pushing forward until I come up with a solution. I hope that would be a really good solution at the end of this idea, right? And so you discovered that if you use silicone and one hole, you get a really good bond on but that's not exactly what you were thinking on day one, was it?

SPEAKER_03: 15:20

No, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_04: 15:21

So you had to apply thinking and fail and still get up and try again, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:27

We really struggled with like at first we were gluing the button back onto the silicone. Oh, okay. But not many glues, like super glues stick to silicone. So we finally found one, but it wouldn't last for that long. Like it stick, but it kept falling off. It would kept falling off. So then we came up with the idea of putting another hole in and just sticking the button back through the hole. So it would stay. Yeah, like we we just come up with so many ideas as we go.

SPEAKER_01: 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 15:55

Nice work. How does it feel to be taken seriously now as an inventor by your teachers and classmates now that you've won the big contest?

SPEAKER_02: 16:04

It's not really different. Nobody really looked at us differently when we got back to the school.

SPEAKER_04: 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:09

Everyone was kind of treated us like the same.

SPEAKER_04: 16:11

That's good.

SPEAKER_01: 16:12

Yeah. They thought it was cool though.

SPEAKER_02: 16:15

Yeah, they they were all congratulating us. They thought it was cool, but nothing really changed.

SPEAKER_04: 16:20

You know, what was it like when you went into the contest? You know you're in a big competition. It's gonna be tough. What was it like presenting it to the judges? And how do you think that experience impacted you?

SPEAKER_02: 16:35

I think we kind of like none of the judges had any questions after presentation. I think our presentation was good enough. Like we kind of covered all the bases.

SPEAKER_01: 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 16:46

And I just felt like I was just explaining something to someone who didn't know what it was, and that's what it was.

SPEAKER_01: 16:51

Yeah, like we were definitely nervous, but like once we got there, just like we were having a conversation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 16:57

So part of the course is storytelling, right?

SPEAKER_01: 16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 17:00

Right. And so yeah, storytelling comes across in your packaging. Storytelling is also in how you present to those adults. You know, some of those adults you were that were in your that were judges. I know two of them are CEOs of corporations. Did that make you nervous at all?

SPEAKER_01: 17:20

Not really. Not really. A little bit. Like I just thought of it as a learning experience. Yeah. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 17:27

Well, you did a great job. And I think you must have prepared a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 17:31

Yeah, yeah. We had a lot of time. So we just like presented to a whole bunch of in people, students, teachers, parents to get different feedback.

SPEAKER_04: 17:41

Did you find that you were working on your idea, not just in class, but were you also thinking about it at night or on weekends?

SPEAKER_01: 17:50

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we would practice at home.

SPEAKER_04: 17:54

So you pres you practice your presentation at home, and then what about the inventing side?

SPEAKER_01: 17:58

Yeah, we just like like if I thought of an idea, I would just like text you. Yeah, she'd text me and be like, oh, that's a new idea.

SPEAKER_04: 18:05

There you go.

SPEAKER_01: 18:05

Just thought of this.

SPEAKER_04: 18:07

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Because, you know, sometimes that's how it works. The idea, uh the idea doesn't just come to you because it's 8 30 in the morning and you're in class. It might be, I don't know, you're just relaxing and then all of a sudden the refinement is there, right? Do you think other schools uh should offer this course and why?

SPEAKER_01: 18:31

Yeah, for sure. I think they should. There's like so many skills you can learn from this. Like speaking skills is definitely very important. And like most kids struggle with that, like definitely me before this, and now it's like like easier for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 18:45

Bringing people together and like social skills. Like I was lucky enough I got to work with one of my friends. Yeah. But I knew like some of my friends had to work with somebody like maybe they had talked to before. And then like by the end of the project, they were friends. They were friends, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 19:00

Isn't that nice?

SPEAKER_02: 19:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 19:02

Yeah. The team projects in this course are pretty powerful. They tend to you you know unite even classes. Yeah. Yeah, because everybody's kind of on a journey together, right? So if you could speak directly to someone in a corporation or an investment group, what would you say about how this course changed your future?

SPEAKER_02: 19:25

It gave me a lot of social skills and invention skills, I guess. Yeah, for sure. Okay. To really like push through something when it gets hard and we have a problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 19:37

I see. Even if you make mistakes, just like shake it off and keep going. Just keep like sharing like ideas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 19:47

So you worked very hard on this.

SPEAKER_01: 19:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 19:50

Did you work uh above and beyond your school hours?

SPEAKER_01: 19:52

Yeah, yeah. Like at home, for sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 19:55

Well, and what about your parents? Were they like, wait, what are you doing? What is what's this about? Were they involved?

SPEAKER_01: 20:01

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, my dad came up with the name.

SPEAKER_04: 20:04

Ah, so he helped out, huh?

SPEAKER_01: 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 20:07

That's good. After taking this course, do you see yourselves entering a STEM or STEAM field maybe one day?

SPEAKER_01: 20:16

Yeah, probably. Yeah. Like I didn't think I would before this, but now I'm like, well, we did this. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 20:22

Yeah, this field of science and technology, engineering and math, it can be very exciting. And there are a lot of jobs in this space. And I know a lot of companies are looking for STEM graduates.

SPEAKER_03: 20:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 20:36

So I'm glad you like it because it really can there's a there'll be a lot of opportunity in the future in that field. Because your team won first place, your school won a new 3D printer. Yes. And uh, how did it feel to see your school win that new machine?

SPEAKER_02: 20:55

It felt nice. Yeah, I knew knowing that like it would it's gonna help the kids in years to come.

SPEAKER_01: 21:02

The the younger kids are going into eighth grade or going into this class.

SPEAKER_04: 21:07

Yeah, yeah. And they got a good machine, didn't they?

SPEAKER_01: 21:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 21:10

Yeah, that was a good one.

SPEAKER_01: 21:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 21:12

Exciting. You know, that and that is a big piece of it, right? How do we build better tools, right, for the students who are coming in the future? Because they're gonna grow up just like I did and you are now. You know, so it's all about how do we how do we put things in place for people to learn about how they make themselves progress in life.

SPEAKER_03: 21:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 21:35

Would you take this course again if you had a chance? And if so, why?

SPEAKER_01: 21:39

Yeah, for sure. It was super fun. It's like especially getting to work with Samantha. I learned a lot for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 21:47

I wanted to know about Olivia that I didn't know like how she works. Uh-huh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 21:53

That's good. All right. And then if you had one word to describe how this class made you feel, what would that one word be?

SPEAKER_02: 22:01

It was fun. I feel like we said it. Creative. It was fun for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 22:05

Okay, fun and creative?

SPEAKER_02: 22:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 22:07

Well, all right. That's good. That works. And then how did you feel when you found out you won the contest? Excited.

SPEAKER_01: 22:14

Oh, it was really exciting.

SPEAKER_04: 22:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:16

I feel like we were so prepared that we were just like, this will be fun.

SPEAKER_04: 22:21

Well, it was fun watching you. Yeah. Thank you. I'm glad I got to participate in that too. Now, when did the idea really click for you?

SPEAKER_01: 22:30

We were just like thinking of like problems that happen like every day, and we're like, we play volleyball, like what happens? Your shoes come untied. And we were just looking into like how your shoes come untied. Like we did a lot of research in that. Yeah. Yeah. And we like figured out it comes untied when you run, like forces when you run or walk, like the repeated impact of your shoes on the floor. So we're like, how do we stop that? And we're like, like, imagine, like, because you double knot your shoelaces, like you tighten the knot.

SPEAKER_04: 22:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 22:59

And somehow they still come untied. So we were like, how do you tighten the knot? So we just came up with this.

SPEAKER_04: 23:06

And then how did you come up with the name? Because of that, the untie knot?

SPEAKER_01: 23:10

Yeah, it does not come on tie. Yeah. Yeah. My dad actually gave me the idea.

SPEAKER_04: 23:15

Ah. Yeah. Well, it's a unique name. You know, it's uh it works. And I think the packaging really works too. So you can see them through the window.

SPEAKER_01: 23:26

See what you're getting.

SPEAKER_04: 23:28

And they're different colors.

SPEAKER_01: 23:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 23:30

Which I think is important.

SPEAKER_01: 23:31

Spirit, color of your shoe, color of your laces, anything, yeah. Match your outfit. Yeah, to match your outfit for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 23:38

Before this course, did you ever think that you'd become an inventor?

SPEAKER_01: 23:42

No. No, not at all. This is like completely new to us. So it was exciting to like it's just a learning experience.

SPEAKER_04: 23:52

Do you like STEM and Steam?

SPEAKER_01: 23:53

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown: 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 23:55

It's pretty awesome. So what do you think is next for your uh idea? You know, where do you think the untie knots gonna go?

SPEAKER_01: 24:03

Hopefully it goes to market. Yeah. Like anybody can use it, like athletes, parents, like so you don't have to keep tying your kids' shoes. Like a very wide variety of people can use it.

SPEAKER_04: 24:15

Well, I have some good news for you because one of the judges really liked your product a lot. He runs a company down in Texas. And so there's been a conversation about wanting to acquire it and pay you girls some royalties along the way and take it to market. Would you be in agreement with that? Would you? Of course. Well, you're learning, you know, today it's like, you know, it's we'll have to solidify that. But Sam, that's gonna be your paperwork. That's your agreement, so that they can start to mass produce these. And so you'll have to take a look at that. You'll learn another thing about life and business, and but that's the agreement. How exciting is that?

SPEAKER_01: 25:03

So exciting. That's exciting.

SPEAKER_04: 25:05

Yeah. So we'll get that off to your parents and you guys can figure out, you know, get that signed up and they're gonna go to market.

SPEAKER_01: 25:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn't that exciting? I'm excited for you.

SPEAKER_04: 25:16

So, you know, we'll get through that process. So if you were gonna give advice to someone in the future who was gonna take the course, what would you give what advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_01: 25:27

Just like be creative, like just share a lot of ideas. Like we didn't had no clue what we were gonna make when we started this. Like we were kind of scared. Like we knew what events land was like in seventh grade, or like I have no clue what I'm gonna make. But it all worked out.

SPEAKER_02: 25:42

So in seventh grade, our English teacher made us like write an essay on what we think our product would be when we do get to eighth grade. It was probably something completely different than this. I probably was not something stupid that wouldn't help me at the time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 25:57

Well, congratulations on your you know, your accomplishments.

SPEAKER_02: 26:00

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 26:01

I'm excited to see where this all goes in the future and to see where your careers go in the future. Yeah. Well, everybody, that's another edition of Tomorrow's World Today. Thanks for tuning in.

SPEAKER_00: 26:13

Thank you for listening to this episode of Tomorrow's World Today podcast. Join us next time as we continue to explore the worlds of inspiration, creation, innovation, and production. Discover more at Tomorrow'sworld Today.com, connect with us on social media at TWT Explore, and find us wherever podcasts are available.