For some people, plants are like pets.
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Their presence alone can help make their owner’s day a little bit brighter, with some going as far as to give them nicknames. But much like pets, taking care of plants is not always an easy task. Forget to water it and it’s likely a goner.
That’s part of why a group of four Naperville Central High School students created “Plant Pal,” a self-watering device designed to keep plants hydrated.
Katelyn Burke, Jack Swigert, Ben Reed and Mahika Solanki created the gadget this past school year as part of their Business INCubatoredu class, a year-long entrepreneurship program that teaches high school students how to launch a business.
The students — none of whom really knew each other before taking the class — worked on their product throughout the year, 3D-printing dozens of models and testing the product with their school’s horticulture teacher.
All of that hard work paid off in May when the Plant Pal creators won first place at the 2026 INCubatoredu Pitch Night for Naperville District 203, receiving $3,000 in seed funding for their product.
Now they’re headed to the 2026 INCubatoredu National Pitch contest in Chicago on July 8, one of five student businesses chosen to present their product from more than 60 submissions nationwide. It is the second group in D203’s history to participate in the national competition since the district launched its INCubatoredu program nearly 10 years ago.
“(Winning the D203 pitch contest) was definitely a night I’m probably not going to forget, and honestly, same with this new pitch that’s going to happen July 8,” said Solanki, an 18-year-old who will be a freshman at the University of Illinois Chicago this fall. “I did not think that we were going get this far at all.”
When the class started last fall, the focus was on brainstorming. Initially, Swigert, Solanki, Reed and Burke thought they had a great idea: creating a more digital-savvy version of the business card. But after further research, they realized that their idea already existed.
“So then we were like, ‘Oh, what’s a problem that everyone has to deal with?’ And watering plants is definitely one of the top ones because keeping a plant alive is very difficult,” Burke said.
The 17-year-old incoming senior knew that from first-hand experience. She had already created a wicking system to help her grandmother keep her plants alive while she was on vacation for two weeks.
After settling on the plant watering idea, the group then came up with the name Plant Pal. For their design, they knew they wanted to create a “pal” to accompany their customers’ plants, so they made Sprout, a small figurine inspired by the popular collectible character Smiski.
Sprout would be the little guy who holds a wicking rope and helps ensure that water in a reservoir is transferred to the plant as needed. After testing different versions, the group decided to make the reservoir Sprout’s home — it’s shaped like a house and clips to the side of the plant’s pot.
It took months of trial and error before the group’s vision came became real.
“Winter, January, February, March, it’s like the dog days, right?” said Swigert, an 18-year-old who will be attending Belmont University in Nashville in the fall. “It’s cold, you don’t really want to get anything done, but that’s kind of when we just put the pedal to the floor and kind of just took off with it.”
Sizing was one of the biggest challenges they faced. Earlier versions of the reservoir were shaped like a box that would be placed beneath the plant pot, but feedback from those who tested the earlier versions suggested the box was too big to accommodate in homes with limited space.
“We went through, I think, a new prototype every single week,” Solanki said. “We were making them and adjusting them so quickly to the point where our teacher was actually getting tired of us using his printer so much.”
Eventually, the group connected with a product designer outside of their school who helped them 3D print every single design until they found one they were satisfied with.
When April rolled around, the team’s attention shifted from engineering to pitching. They practiced presentations during class, met outside of school to rehearse, refined their presentation slides and searched for anything that could set them apart from the competition.
Their efforts culminated when Plant Pal won first place at D203’s INCubatoredu Pitch Night.
“There was a lot of chatter. I mean, I feel like when people first heard about us, they were like, ‘Plants, really? This is what you guys are doing?’” Swigert said. “But I think when they heard our pitch, they were blown away. … There’s one judge that actually was speechless. All he said was, ‘Wow.’ He was like, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’”
Beyond the competitions, interest in the product has continued to grow. Burke said Plant Pal has received more than 300 preorders and the group also recently partnered with The Growing Place in Naperville, where customers can purchase the product.
For the four students, though, the project has accomplished something bigger than creating a self-watering planter.
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“I feel like you kind of think, ‘Oh, I’m just a teenager. Can I really create a business?'” Burke said.
But after this experience, she knows the answer to that: yes, you can.