Jack Marcus is attacking a part of the status quo that is deeply personal, incredibly controversial, and yet requires our immediate attention. He has created a device that can potentially be useful to anyone. His device, called “Safe Sip,” is timely given the recent controversies concerning sexual assault.

“I wanted to create Safe Sip because of how relevant it would be in today’s world, especially for those in my age range,” said Jack Marcus, a senior.

Imagine you’re at a party and you go to the bar to get a drink. You get your drink and then leave it on the countertop to go to the bathroom. You come back, pick up your drink, but before you take a sip you test it for date rape drugs. You insert a small ½” by 2” strip of paper, cleverly dubbed Safe Sip and the bottom half of the paper turns a bright yellow. You breath a sigh of relief, knowing that you just avoided having the worst night of your life.

Safe Sip was created by Marcus as his 2013 regional science fair project. He originally started the project under the mentorship of chemistry teacher, Michelle Karpovich, and alongside (now graduated) partner, Annabelle Castleman. It is designed to detect most of the generic date rape drugs, such as Rohypnol, GHB, and Ketamine, as well as a commonly used (in date rape) analog of GHB which is a drug that is similar to GHB and has similar effects.

Recently, Jack was invited to talk at TEDx Charlottesville about Safe Sip. He, along with 20 other speakers, talked about subjects relating to the . Jack says that preparing to talk in front of an audience required a lot of effort and practice.

“I worked with a speaker coach and we met weekly to revise, improve, and work on the talk,” says Jack. Safe Sip is currently in the process of getting a patent.