Tiger Joe’s makes upgrades to coffee cart with help from students

By Sarah Carman
Sept. 23, 2025

Freshman Ethan Viola works on his sign for Tiger Joe’s coffee cart. Rachel McCormick’s engineering class put their new 3D printers to good use making the designs for the cup and lid holders for the cart. Tiger Joe’s teacher, Kris Spradley, voted on the best designs. “I got to hear them present their design to the class. I’m kind of their client and they are providing their product for me,” Spradley said.

Students Austin Stark, Ethan Viola, Cohen Elpers, Sebastian Lencher, Jaxon Young, and Brody Douglas designed the coffee carts’ signs. “I picked the six top ones so that it gave more people the opportunity to have something they made and be a part of the process,” Spradley said. 

Spradley sits down with Viola to go over his design. Spradley met with each student to discuss color schemes, dimensions and overall design ideas for what she wanted. They decided on Eisenhower colors: black, blue and grey. “It will be pretty cool to see them on the carts,” Viola said. 

Engineering teacher Graham Ratzlaff’s student aid designed the cup and lid holders for the coffee cart. “It was a big detail,” Spradley said.

Other classes also got in on this project. Kristin Salazar’s graphic design class designed a logo that was printed onto the new Tiger Joe’s cup and lid holders using Bamboo Labs 3D filament. 

Students Xander Williams, Caleb Wood and Seth Brunscheen-Cartagena learn life skills while running Tiger Joe’s Coffee Cart. “They keep track of their inventory, what they sell and what rooms they go to,” Spradley said. Now when the coffee cart comes by, graphic design and engineering students can get a taste of seeing their designs used in real business circumstances.