While taking the Engineering and Design Innovation class at Northwestern University, Alexander Albanese spent a year observing surgeons, identifying pain points and jotting down notes on how to improve a doctor or nurse's day-to-day through design and process.
"The class forced me to look for the problems all around me," said Albanese. "And then I was speaking with a professor about this and I saw this dirty french press on his desk, that hadn't been cleaned in days, and it dawned on me."
Though Albanese's epiphany wasn't necessarily inspired by his time in hospitals, he did zero-in on a task that many people approach with surgeon-like detail and take extremely seriously - the making of their morning coffee.
Albanese studied the French Press, the portable, hand-powered coffee maker, and began designing and prototyping ways to improve the device.
"It was clear that there's demand for a portable coffee maker, but people hate cleaning it," said Albanese. "That's where the idea for the pod came from and that's what started it all. It's basically a hand-powered espresso maker, but for coffee."
So, as a class project, Albanese began building an alternative to the French Press, called the It's American Press. The major difference with this device is that hot water is poured into the carafe first, before any coffee grinds are added. Coffee grinds, instead, go into a perforated pod that is attached to the plunger. The pod is then slowly pushed down, with the hot water passing through the grinds, creating a cup of coffee. When the pod is at the bottom of the carafe, you are free to pour.
But, most importantly, when it's time to clean up, you just pull out the pod and dump it out, rather that than having to wash scattered grinds from the entire carafe.
"Believe it or not, there's really nothing like this out there," said Albanese. "That fact alone surprised me, too."
With the help of a crowdfunding campaign - the It's American Press raised over $160k on indiegogo earlier this year - and the ICNC, a Chicago-based incubator, Albanese was able to turn his school project into a business. Currently, he's also a member of mHub, the new co-working space and community for hardware entrepreneurs and makers, and works with Shipbob, a local shipping startup, on distribution.
"I wouldn't have been able to do all this without the help of the Chicago maker community - actually ship a real product to thousands of customers after starting from scratch with just an idea, some raw material, and access to those machine tools at school," added Albanese.
Learn more about the product here and take a look at the It's American Press in action below.
(Video by Chicago Inno, edited by Will Flanagan. Image from It's American Press)
