By Alex Kirshner ’18

THE ROUNDUP

Brophy’s Seed Spot class had a group of four students present their entrepreneurial idea at the Seed Spot Demo Day in May.

Seniors John Murphy ’18, David Griego ’18, Thomas Holben ’18 and Michael Beram ’18 won the Judges Award for their Drip Drop Water Solutions business venture.

“Mr. Hester put us all together,” Murphy said, “and it ended up being the best group and I couldn’t be happier about that.”

The group said that they came up with the idea together, and they all wanted to focus on water conservation at first.

There were four groups in last year’s Brophy Seed Spot class, and Griego said that Drip Drop placed first in the Brophy competition.

“There was a Brophy competition,” Griego said, “And that was kind of like a final in the class. We placed first out of four, and with that we had the opportunity to present at the Seed Spot National competition.”

The team was awarded the Judges Choice at the National Demo, according to Holben.

“The judges decided that we were the best group, and then they left it open to the audience to vote on whichever they liked,” Holben said.

The group received a $2,500 cash prize and a photo shoot. Murphy said that they are still working with Seed Spot to get the money they won, which they will then invest back in their company to work on both a prototype and a patent for their concept.

The team credits the Seed Spot class with giving them the basic information that they needed to start their own business, as well as helping them with their idea.

Holben praised Mr. Hester with perfecting their presentation.

“If you look at our script from when we first started, and then our final script, it’s just a crazy improvement,” he said.

Both Murphy and Griego echoed his sentiment.

“Mr. Hester is invaluable in the whole process,” Murphy said. “We really couldn’t have done this without him.”

In addition to the four hours a week they spent working on their project in class, Holben said that they often met outside of class to work on the presentation.

“Individually, we were putting in an extra three to four hours a week,” he said “And then collectively, we’d meet up at David’s house to make sure that we had everything down.”

The group said that they spent twelve hours a week working on the project.