Tired of Watery Ketchup?

Two Kansas City, MO teens were. Instead of just waiting for some other sucker to come along and use the ketchup before them and get the watery mess on their burger, they instead decided to come up with a solution.

Tyler Richards and Jonathan Thompson, both 18 years old, decided to make this the topic for a project for the Project Lead the Way course. The prompt for the project was "It bothers me when..." Both young men found watery ketchup as something that bothered them, and after finding that 85% of the people the surveyed agreed with them, the set off in search of a solution.

Their design is for squeeze bottles and changes the cap design so that the watery stuff that can ruin a burger is collected, and only perfect ketchup comes out. They call it SNAP, which is short for Syneresis Negation Apparatus. Apparently "syneresis" is the term used to describe when liquid comes out out solution in gelatinous substances as the material contracts.

Here is a video of the inventors demonstrating their product:

The two young men are currently in the process of seeking a patent got their invention. Now before any naysayers chime in with the idea that this invention could be replaced by doing something as simple as shaking the bottle before dispensing your ketchup... keep in mind that this is America. The only thing we like more than a cool new gadget, is a cool new gadget that saves us from doing work!

It is a great idea, and the two young men behind it will hopefully continue to recapture the spirit of innovation we used to be famous for. We need more programs like Project Lead the Way and projects like this one in our schools.