Stephen Fazio was looking to create a Christmas present for his father. Instead, the Georgia Tech electrical and computer engineering student ended up creating the first ZipString prototype in his dorm room.
ZipString is a toy that floats a seemingly standard loop of string in the air, carefully balancing the forces of gravity, lift, tension, and drag. With any movement the user makes, the string follows.
Fazio first met Austin Hillam at a metro Atlanta church, and this now-dynamic duo was off and running –– creating a new prototype together after just 12 days of knowing each other. They posted a video of the new prototype to TikTok and received more than 20 million views in one night.
Hillam, from Johns Creek, Georgia, is an engineering student at Brigham Young University with a passion for creating and fixing things. He attributes it to growing up in a household with a father who loves working with tools.
“My father and I never called anybody to fix anything at our house. We would just look things up and figure it out ourselves,” Hillam says. His father enjoys mentoring the pair, bringing his expertise and the same figure-it-out mentality to the ZipString team.
Fazio grew up with a love for all things electronic. When he arrived on Georgia Tech’s campus, he was focused on learning as much as he could in this area, joining RoboJackets and participating in multiple hackathons. The skills he developed at Tech have now culminated in ZipString.
Currently, working from the Hillam family basement, the ZipString team aims to improve ZipString, fulfill orders, and, of course, drum up more business.
ZipString will be featured on Friday, Dec. 9, on ABC’s Shark Tank.
Evan Atkinson, Institute Social Media Officer
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