No spilled drinks thanks to students DrinkSaver

The audience is left gaping when a group of DTU students demonstrate their so-called DrinkSaver. In front of some 100 people at Roskilde Festival, they present two pints of draught beer. One of them with a small plastic ring and one without.

“As you can see, it’s actually very difficult to spill beer with a DrinkSaver in the cup,” says Lars Lohmann, one of the group members, who then tries to make two beers splash over. There is a DrinkSaver in one of the cups.

As expected, beer is splashing everywhere from one of the cups, but not a single drop is spilled from the cup with the small plastic ring.

“And you can of course still drink from the cup as you normally do,” he says, calmly pouring the beer from the cup with the DrinkSaver, so that a light stream hits the ground, after which he takes a sip. Spontaneous applause.

Started as a solution for the disabled and wheelchair users 
The five students behind the DrinkSaver, Lars Lohmann, Laila Sofie Midjord, Casper Nørland, Astrid Sønderskov Andersen, and Oscar Vilstrup Burbandt, are all second-semester BSc Eng students on Design and Innovation. They originally developed the DrinkSaver as part of a project where they were tasked with developing a product for the benefit of the disabled. 

“The great thing about the DrinkSaver is that it is not a stigmatizing product. It can be used by wheelchair users or people with shaky hands, but is can also be used by people who do not want to spill their beer at a concert,” says Astrid Sønderskov Andersen.

After a good working relationship and a product which the students found to be worth investing more time in, they have decided to make a business out of the DrinkSaver. They saw Roskilde Festival as a good place to get some feedback, and they have, among other places, demonstrated their product in the camp for disabled festival-goers.

“Now we will gather all the input we get here, because there are still a lot things that we need to look into. But our vision is that everyone should have a DrinkSaver, and that it should be available at most bars and festivals,” says Astrid Sønderskov Andersen.