Worried that the increasing popularity of hammocks will kill the trees supporting them, a group of UT students created their own hammock structure with reclaimed steel from oil pipes.

Olivia Nguyen, a 2016 aerospace engineering graduate, co-founded a startup called Nido — the Spanish word for nest — along with three other UT students in June. The startup sells hammock structures made of locally sourced recycled steel to public institutions.

“Our current product holds eight hammocks and 16 people,” Nguyen said. “We work with a local hammock company. We rent out and also sell structures mostly to festivals, universities and state parks.”

UT is one of Nido’s customers. By the next spring semester, there will be one hammock structure by Nido set up on campus as part of the Speedway Mall Project.

When the weather is nice, the Nido team sets up their hammock stand in front of the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Building for students to hang out using their hammocks.

“I have so much respect for people that take the Earth’s limited resources into account when they create new things,” said Katherine Newton, an international relations and global studies freshman. “Now, with utmost confidence, I can invest in products that help me do the things I love,
like hammocking.”

The initial idea of creating the structures came from the 2012 hammock ban on UT campus. As a response to the ban, Nguyen started the Texas Hammocking Club in 2014 and encouraged students to enjoy nature in a responsible and environmentally friendly way.

“Hammocks are banned in parks and universities,” Nguyen said. “People are going to the same tree and hanging a hammock. If you hang with a strap on a tree repeatedly, it’s gonna harm the bark of the tree, and the tree will eventually die.”

The Nido team didn’t intend to launch a startup at the beginning, but after crafting the first hammock structure for a music festival, they realized that it was good idea and a lot of people wanted their products, Nguyen said.

Electrical engineering senior Zane Lewin, a founding member of Nido, said UT provided a variety of resources that helped them get their startup up and running, such as the Longhorn Maker Studio, the Machine Shop and the Longhorn Startup course.

“The Maker Studio has a ton of 3D printers and laser cutters,” Lewin said. “[In] the Machine Shop, there are all sorts of metal working tools. The people who work there full time, they were a huge help.”