Don't you just hate it when that first squirt of ketchup is actually just a watery mess? Two teens took this issue very seriously, and they used a 3D printer to design a new cap that solves the soggy problem.

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The Kansas City Star reports that Liberty North High School seniors Tyler Richards and Jonathan Thompson sketched 30 different designs before coming up with "the 'shroom." "It is based on the Pythagorean cup idea," Thompson told the newspaper. "It's also the same principle that toilets work off of." Visually, the cap looks like "an upside-down mushroom on the underside of the cap," reports the paper.

How does it work? The ketchup cannot go through the mushroom portion of the cap. "So [the pressure] pushes it up and over it. Then the water sits in this little basin right here and the ketchup comes out," Richards explained.

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As part of their involvement in Project Lead the Way, Thompson and Richards were challenged by their teacher Brett Kisker to come up with a solution to something that really bothered them. "The prompt was that they had to come up with something that was relevant to them," said Kisker. "So we always start with the phrase, 'It really bugs me when …'" When the two students decided their problem was wet bread from a watery first squirt of ketchup, Kisker told them that the solution was just shaking the bottle. However, according to Kisker, "they did a lot of research, and they had me convinced that this problem really does exist."

If Thompson and Richards were to bring the new cap to the marketplace, it would cost 23 cents per cap, with the consumer paying about $3 for the new bottle.

Would you be willing to spend $3 for a ketchup bottle that doesn't have a watery first squirt?

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