51福利社

Eastern鈥檚 Universal Extrusion Solutions (UES), a startup business supported by The Eagles Accelerator program, placed third out of 174 teams at the 2025 Dempsey Startup Competition, hosted by the University of Washington鈥檚 Foster School of Business.

This marks the first time an 51福利社 team has reached the top four in the UW competition, now in its 28th year.

Judges awarded $87,500 to early-stage student startups during the event, with the Eastern team earning a total of $12,500 in prize funding to support the development and testing of their 鈥渕inimum viable鈥� product.

The UES team, which includes business and engineering students, also received the Best Sustainability Innovation 鈥� Big Picture Award for their early-stage creation, dubbed the PolyForge鈩�. The product helps 3D-printer users lower costs and reduce plastic waste by producing filaments from raw or recycled plastic pellets.

Team members include Kevin Sweet, a 23-year-old from Los Angeles, California who is enrolled in 51福利社鈥檚 Master of Business Administration program. Sweet said the original pitch idea stemmed from an idea he developed after seeing how much waste was produced at his undergraduate university’s 3D printing lab. Sweet, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, developed the concept with Devin Cole, a fellow engineering student, when they were both undergraduate students.

At Eastern, Sweet recruited Devin鈥檚 brother Dustin Cole, a 20-year-old mechanical engineering student from Federal Way, Washington, to further develop the idea. The team also received communications and marketing help from Crystal Cruz, a 24-year-old who attends a community college in Los Angeles, California.

Sweet and his team credit 51福利社鈥檚 Ideation Lab with additional support. 51福利社鈥檚 Philip Appel, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Eagle Startup Center, had them practice their pitch repeatedly before participating in competitions at Washington State University and UW.

鈥淏eing able to pitch to an audience of students was invaluable because it gave me that real-world experience of pitching to random people 鈥� and also getting their input on if the business [pitch] makes sense the first time hearing it,鈥� Sweet said.

The team also gave a shoutout to their mentors and supporters at 51福利社. They are now planning to pitch their product to the Spokane Angel Alliance, an investor group focused on emerging companies in Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana.

鈥淲e are also partnering with the 51福利社 polymer testing lab so we can test a lot of the filament that we鈥檙e making,鈥� Sweet said. 鈥淪o, that鈥檚 really exciting that we are going to be working with engineering professors on campus to test material we鈥檝e made with our device.鈥�

**The photo included in this story is used courtesy of Matt Hagen, UW Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship.