John Mark Goeke
Move 2:
Product Development
Research
My research was very limited, since to make my own prototype requires me to make my own decisions on how I would like it to be built. I did, however, do some research on reasons WHY one should make a prototype of a product.
1. It enables you to test and refine the functionality of your design.
I wanted to see if a Tyvek belt would be better in any way than a normal belt (hint: it kind of is but not really)
2. It makes it possible to test the performance of various materials.
I wanted to test how Tyvek handled color, as well as the strength of the belt
3. It'll help you describe your product more effectively
I wanted to be able to explain exactly how I the product was made and would work
4. It will encourage others to take you more seriously.
I don’t think I have to worry about this last point, because people always take me seriously.
Good Examples
Coolest Cooler
Yooka-Laylee
Oculus Rift
Offering a fresh take on... as one might guess from the name... a cooler, Coolest Cooler innovates on a product that has remained fairly unchanged for forty years. With features like a blender, speaker, device charger, and built in lights, this feature filled product excelled due to all of the new things it offered to a fairly unchanging cooler market. It shows that with thoughtful design that attacks common problems people have with a product, others too can raise $13,285,226 dollars.
This 3D platformer caused major excitement due to the previous record of the company making it. Fueled by nostalgia of consumers towards their previous series, Banjo Kazooie, Playtonic Games sought to publish a new game focused on the likely duo of a chameleon and bat--a creative platformer released in a time when creative platformers have seemed to be declining in frequency and popularity. Other must have agreed as well, since 73,206 backers pledged 2,090,104 euros to the project.
This virtual reality headset contributed more to the VR revolution than the Nintendo Virtual Boy of 1995 could ever hope to. Nominated as the best product of E3, a major gaming convention, the headset was something new and exciting that captured the attention of many, offering low-latency head tracking and many sensors to offer truly immersive experiences. By many, of course, the 9,522 backers who pledged $2,427,429 to bring the project to life on Kickstarter. Or Mark Zuckerberg, who acquired Oculus VR for a staggering $2 billion.
Good Examples
Coolest Cooler
Yooka-Laylee
Oculus Rift
Offering a fresh take on... as one might guess from the name... a cooler, Coolest Cooler innovates on a product that has remained fairly unchanged for forty years. With features like a blender, speaker, device charger, and built in lights, this feature filled product excelled due to all of the new things it offered to a fairly unchanging cooler market. It shows that with thoughtful design that attacks common problems people have with a product, others too can raise $13,285,226 dollars.
This 3D platformer caused major excitement due to the previous record of the company making it. Fueled by nostalgia of consumers towards their previous series, Banjo Kazooie, Playtonic Games sought to publish a new game focused on the likely duo of a chameleon and bat--a creative platformer released in a time when creative platformers have seemed to be declining in frequency and popularity. Other must have agreed as well, since 73,206 backers pledged 2,090,104 euros to the project.
This virtual reality headset contributed more to the VR revolution than the Nintendo Virtual Boy of 1995 could ever hope to. Nominated as the best product of E3, a major gaming convention, the headset was something new and exciting that captured the attention of many, offering low-latency head tracking and many sensors to offer truly immersive experiences. By many, of course, the 9,522 backers who pledged $2,427,429 to bring the project to life on Kickstarter. Or Mark Zuckerberg, who acquired Oculus VR for a staggering $2 billion.
Good Examples
Coolest Cooler
Yooka-Laylee
Oculus Rift
Offering a fresh take on... as one might guess from the name... a cooler, Coolest Cooler innovates on a product that has remained fairly unchanged for forty years. With features like a blender, speaker, device charger, and built in lights, this feature filled product excelled due to all of the new things it offered to a fairly unchanging cooler market. It shows that with thoughtful design that attacks common problems people have with a product, others too can raise $13,285,226 dollars.
This 3D platformer caused major excitement due to the previous record of the company making it. Fueled by nostalgia of consumers towards their previous series, Banjo Kazooie, Playtonic Games sought to publish a new game focused on the likely duo of a chameleon and bat--a creative platformer released in a time when creative platformers have seemed to be declining in frequency and popularity. Other must have agreed as well, since 73,206 backers pledged 2,090,104 euros to the project.
This virtual reality headset contributed more to the VR revolution than the Nintendo Virtual Boy of 1995 could ever hope to. Nominated as the best product of E3, a major gaming convention, the headset was something new and exciting that captured the attention of many, offering low-latency head tracking and many sensors to offer truly immersive experiences. By many, of course, the 9,522 backers who pledged $2,427,429 to bring the project to life on Kickstarter. Or Mark Zuckerberg, who acquired Oculus VR for a staggering $2 billion.
Three crowdfunding project examples with particularly strong product design are:
Triton
Solar Roadways
Ring
Bad Examples
Marketed as “the World’s First Artificial Gills Oxygen Respirator”, Triton promised to allows the wearer to breathe underwater for up to 45 minutes at a depth of 15 ft by “utilizing artificial gill and liquid oxygen technology”. One problem: what their product claims to be able to do is literally impossible. Physicists everywhere collectively groaned at the stupidity of the Tritan’s claims, pointing out, for example, that Tritan would need to pump 230 liters through its filters at maximum efficiency every minute. A garden hose pumps 35 liters per minute. While the rationally minded dismissed this project as what it is (vaporware), it didn’t stop 1,051 backers who pledged $423,235 to bring this impossible project to life.
Solar. Freakin’. Roadways. This was the title of a speculative youtube video about so called “solar roadways” that received a staggering 21,298,704 views and brought excitement to this husband and wife road project. A project claiming to make solar panels that can be driven, parked, and walked on, that also melted snow and cut greenhouse gasses, it seemed too good to be true. Of course, this is because it was. Yet somehow, as with the Tritan, people did not rationally evaluate the merit of this roadway project, and 49,902 backers pledged $2,267,393 to bring this piece of vaporware to life. Why pick the road for solar panels out of all possible locations?!
“Shortcut everything,” said Logbar Inc., offering a wearable input device (a ring) that allows one to control anything. Having gesture control, text transmission, payment, and more, this ring actually was a very promising concept that piqued the interests of 5,161 backers, who pledged $880,998 to bring the project to life. A great concept, the design of the project didn’t fulfill its promises, as it just didn’t work for people. As with many other tech products that launched on crowdfunding websites, tech blogs hyped up the product without even doing the research on it or evaluating its claims, so this terrible trend of overbacked projects that don’t deliver is destined to continue.
Three crowdfunding project examples with particularly weak product design are:
Application
I started my research at the Tyvek Website, where I saw that there were both hard and soft structure types of Tyvek. Type 10 Tyvek I immediately ruled out, as it is smooth, stiff, and non-directional. Types 14 and 16 are soft, which is more appropriate to my desired product. Where they differ is that Type 14 offers excellent splash and dry protection, while Type 16 has pin perforation that gives it higher permeability, flexibility, and softness at the expense of lower tear strength. The most ideal type seems to be Tyvek Soft Structure Style 14 (1443R), which according to the Material Concepts website is printable, easy to cut and sew, and is durable. Good for promotional apparel and accessories.
With this style in mind, then, I was able to find a solid Amazon deal that offered 60” by 1 yard of Tyvek for $9.50 with shipping. I purchased 2 of them, but since there was no additional shipping charge, the total was only $13.00 with shipping. 60” wide is enough to account for most waist sizes, so the strips for the belts will be cut along the yard side (a yard is 36”). As I do not yet know how many times the belt would need to be folded to reach desired thickness, I believe that the quantity ordered will be acceptable for testing multiple methods. I will remember these costs when determining the cost of a unit later on, but anticipate being able to lower material costs by ordering in a larger quantity.
With the right material arriving the next week, I set out to actually produce the belt. I ended up feeling very happy about having chosen an easier concept to make, since even the belt proved difficult to produce. To address my first problem of the Tyvek not being rigid enough, I visited a local fabric store and purchased a stabilizer-- a thick, rigid fabric that would offer a more rigid characteristic to the belt, which I had now determined would consist of Tyvek wrapped around the stabilizer. I also purchased white thread, which was fine for my purposes since I chose a type of Tyvek that can be easily sewn. I then raided my old belt drawer and used some old “Double D-Ring” belts as the models for my own, and decided on the specification for the belt.
Length: 38 inches (of course, this varies with waist size)
Width: 1 1/4 inches
Height: 1/8 inches
Full materials: Tyvek Style 14, cotton sewing thread, stabilizer fabric, and two D-rings.
Specifications
The specifications of the belt is not the amount of Tyvek needed to create one belt, since this varies with different belt sizes, and the Tyvek wraps around both sides of the belt and over itself to create a loop. This will be talked about in Move 4, which has to do with logistics. I salvaged two rings to use for the belt from an old one I had (since I decided that it would be best to make a friction belt instead of a belt with a buckle) and got to work (with the help of my loving mother, of course). The process for creating the belt was fairly simple after I decided how I wanted it to be constructed, and I have detailed it to the right.
I said that I used D-Rings from an old belt, but any rings will work just as well. They can be metal or even 3D printed. The stabilizer can be any rigid fabric, and the Tyvek, as I said previously, should be the type that can be printed on easily.
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Cut the Tyvek to the desired length (twice its width and an addition 1 1/2 inches to its length to hold the rings of the belt), as well as the stabilizer fabric (desired width and length of the belt). If this belt was to have a pattern, all that would need to be done is to run the Tyvek through the printer (set to a custom size equal to the size of the Tyvek). This was not done by me initially, because I wanted a simple prototype, and because my printer is never dependable (I did, however, produce one for my presentation). If I was making a company/setting to manufacture this product, I would purchase a newer, larger, and nice printer that I would modify to allow for easier printing of the belts.
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Carefully wrap the Tyvek around the stabilizer, and sew along the edges down the entire length of the belt to secure the tyvek to the stabilizer. Sew the end as well.
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On the end where the loops will go, take the two rings and thread the into the belt, and wrap that end around the rings to secure them in place.
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Sew this end down to the belt, leaving about a 1 1/2 inch area for the loops.
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That’s it. The belt is done.
Summary
As a “summary” of this step, I took a few photos of the final product to display. I did not follow the suggested summary format of the Capstone, since my project is not as much based on research and essay writing as it is on hands on work with trial and error. I didn’t have any obstacles (besides an uncooperative printer, of course), and from my research and analysis of previous projects, I basically learned not to overcomplicate things, and to only use essential elements/materials when constructing the prototype. Without further ado, here are some photos (taken on my smartphone, as I do not own a nice DSLR, but in an actual Kickstarter campaign, I would most definitely take professional photos of it). I also included a photo of a test I did with photo reproduction on the Tyvek.