Smart-heating lunchboxes to wine backpacks: Hoosier-made gadgets featured in home show
In a show filled with the next best things for making home entertaining, travel and organizing easier, Indiana students stood out.
Hoosier college students were top finishers in a design competition at The Inspired Home Show in Chicago last week.
The show, produced annually by the International Housewares Association, drew thousands of exhibitors from around the world looking to get their products on store shelves or through home-shopping channels.
The first-place winner of the Student Design Competition was University of Notre Dame junior Katherine Gaylord, who created the Stack breast pump washing basin for use in workplaces.
With its three components, it creates both a basin and drying rack for breast pump pieces, and helps do away with washing in dirty public sinks.
With her SPIN yarn dispenser and storage solution, Alicja Ramotowski, a Notre Dame senior, was among two second-place winners.
Designed with senior crafters in mind, the device keeps yarn in one place and unraveling smoothly so that there are no interruptions in knitting.
When done knitting, the user can place needles and unfinished projects into a compartment in the dispenser, so it acts as a display piece as well.
Purdue University senior Augustine Curran-Munoz was one of three third-place winners for his Ground coffee recycler system that stores and heat-treats used coffee grounds to be used as fertilizer. It treats the grounds in a dedicated storage capsule and compresses them into compact fertilizer pucks, saving on storage space.
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More Hoosier-made products
The stellar design students weren’t the only Hoosier presence at the show. Several Indiana companies showed off new products.
Among them:
Seymour Home Products, out of Seymour, with the only mass-produced ironing board manufactured in the U.S.
E&A Industries-owned, Indianapolis-based brand Silipint, which started with a reusable silicone pint glass and then a shot glass and now makes tumblers and to-go bowls with connected lids, showed its upcoming silicone drinkware that looks like glass.
Fort Wayne-headquartered Summit Brands, which has Dryel at-home dry cleaner and Fels-Naptha laundry bar soap among its brands.
Indianapolis-based Priority Products International, displaying its new Harvest Fresh Cube, a 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch cube that keeps refrigerated produce fresh up to 30 days without harmful chemicals. The cubes, placed in the fridge, work with fresh flowers, as well.
Dickinson Kitchenware, the Greenfield maker of utensils, knife blocks, salt and pepper shakers, cutting boards and tumblers crafted from locally-sourced wood.
Wabash Valley Farms, the Monon company that gave us the WhirleyPop stovetop popcorn popper, displayed holiday products, including an advent calendar.
Wine backpacks to clothes hangers
Hundreds of other products were introduced at the show, which was held in conjunction with the Travel Good Show this year.
For the bar, there’s Clear Craft Ice Maker by Klaris. It produces up to eight bar-quality craft ice cubes per day. The two-inch cubes are slow-melting with extreme clarity.
To deter porch pirates, Big Mouth Parcel is a non-techie version of the personal secured parcel box that can also accommodate food and grocery deliveries and documents, as well as larger packages such as cases of wine and golf clubs. The two-foot by four-foot box comes in a kit for assembly.
For more comfy travel, the Sleep Pod by FLYYPOD ultra lightweight portable sleeping bag is temperature controlled based on the individual’s body temperature. It’s made of recycled water bottles and plastic ocean waste such as fishing nets.
Fans of Paramount’s “Yellowstone” series can stamp their homes with the ranch’s flavor using plenty of branded merchandise, including dressers, dining tables, beds and hutches, as well as cast iron cookware from Lodge.
Consumers wanting a break from the office microwave can buy HeatsBox by Faitron. The smart-heating, app-connected, battery-powered lunchbox heats food in 20-30 minutes.
The beverage backpack by Fly With Wine lets users carry and dispense wine from their backs.
The Laifen hair dryer is more lightweight than other premium hair dryers in the market and about 20% more quiet, so users can better enjoy podcasts while getting ready, makers claim.
The Ready Hanger angles one end up when empty making it easier to find on a full rack. And it doesn't stretch he necks of garments.
Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at cheryl.jackson@indystar.com or 317-444-6264. Follow her on Twitter:@cherylvjackson.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Breast pump cleans to wine backpacks: New products for home and travel
