Design Innovation Student Spotlight - Epi-Case Invention
Kent State student team collaborates on cross-disciplinary projects to solve everyday challenges.
Ariella Yager, BBA ’17, entrepreneurship major from the College of Business Administration, Samuel Graska, BS ‘17 MBA ’18, cellular/molecular biology major in the College of Arts and Sciences and Justin Gleason, BA ’16, MA ’18, MBA ’18, College of Architecture and Environmental Design. created an Epi-Case, an auto-injector smartphone case that is similar to an EpiPen.
Yager and Graska were working on a project for an entrepreneurship class they were taking when Graska, who was nervously clicking a pen open and closed, noticed how the spring-loaded cap ejected the pen’s point. This developed into an idea that the same mechanics could administer a dose of epinephrine and possibly be incorporated into a smartphone case.
The team spent more than a year planning, inventing, designing and -D printing their smartphone cases that contain vital medication, like epinephrine. This idea is now going through the patent process. In the meantime, the team also created the “alula” product which is a smartphone case that holds, protects and dispenses birth control pills and connects to an app that reminds the users to take a pill every day.
The team, known as Case.MD, successfully collaborated on these projects with each bringing specific expertise to the process - business operations (Yager), medical and FDA leadership (Graska) and design (Gleason). The team credits the staff at LaunchNET Kent State with supporting them throughout their creative process.