When four Johns Hopkins students presented their senior design course product at the annual Engineering Design Day, they weren’t expecting it to be covered by local Baltimore media—and they really weren’t expecting it to be covered by Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show.
“When one of my friends texted me that we got a shoutout, I thought she was joking,” Erin Walsh says.
But the ingenious idea of Tastee Tape—edible tape for wraps, burritos, gyros, and other foldable concoctions—took off, launching the students into a media storm. Just today, TIME named Tastee Tape to its annual “Best Inventions” list (paywall)in the food and drink category, the latest recognition for this ingestible innovation.
Each year, the magazine compiles a list of inventions that change how we live, work, play, and think about what’s possible. Hundreds of nominations across categories such as apps and software, connectivity, design, and robotics are evaluated based on factors including efficiency, originality, and impact; TIME calls Tastee Tape “the solution to exploding tacos and burritos the world didn’t know it needed.”
“As a kid, I always enjoyed inventing and to now be honored by TIME for one of my inventions—my childhood self would not have believed this moment,” Marie Eric says.
Read the full story in The Hub.