Project Management

In our team meeting we all started by giving a progress report.

• Christian had been taking data on marketability by talking to several people he knew in the bike world to get their input on: how much they would pay for our product, which system would work best for them (pedal/shoe/removable attachment), and for any other suggestions on things to include. 
• Kelsey had been doing the groundwork for the project submission: starting to script the video, find slides, and doing the market and profitability analyses.
• Austin also was working on marketability but more from the standpoint of benchmarking and looking at the current competition and what they were doing. In addition he found some very useful links to aid in the completion of a math model and arduino coding for prototyping.
• Steven was working on the math model and had a much simplified, working model on paper to be coded into matlab or an arduino sketch to analyze data taken during experimentation. In addition he gave an idea for how to run an experiment with the planned prototype constrained by the materials and sensors we have available.

We then moved on to planning our next meeting.

Our plan is to meet sunday to build and run our experiment, take data, compile data, and record video.

• Arduino coding- Austin and Steven
• video scripting/slide building- Kelsey
• marketing data- Christian
• prototype ideas/preparation/materials-Everyone

Product Problem Finding

Our reason for doing this experiment is to figure out what will sell on the market before we make any headway on the product. This is because we don't want to make a product that nobody wants. This is a very big problem in our society today.

The problem that we are trying to solve is that bike computers today are very expensive; some ranging into the upper two thousands. Our goal is to create a cheap power output computer for the amateur biker. We aim to make a product that is at least three times cheaper than what is on the market today.

There are three main problems that we think the customer will care about with our product. The first being the cost. Professional bikers don't need to worry about the cost because they are sponsored and have these types of things basically given to them. So we are marketing our product to the amateur biker who wants to know his power output for training but can't afford to spend all that money. The second problem that customers will care about is the convenience of the product. We want to make something simple and easy to use and attach in the littlest time possible. The third problem is that the customer will want the product to be fairly accurate. They are not going to want a product that gives them skewed and inaccurate data.

The data we want to measure with our experiment is whether the amateur will buy this product and if so how much they would pay for this product. We want to try and talk to as many amateur cyclists as possible. Our goal is between 5 and 10.
We have three different product ideas that would work. The first is that the pressure sensor that records the cyclists power output would be put on the pedal so that they can use whatever shoe they want, this however means that you would have to use the specific cleat that our pedal uses. Our second idea is to have the product be an addition to the shoe. It would go between the cleat and the shoe meaning that you could use whatever shoe you wanted and whatever cleat and pedal you want. Our last idea is that it would be in the shoe. You would need to buy the special pair or shoes that has the pressure sensor in them. This means that you would couldn't use your old shoes but you could use whatever cleats and pedals you wanted.

We would measure the data by pitching all three ideas to the amateur and ask them which they like best and how much they would pay for that product. We have to be careful to try to avoid inaccurate feedback, however.  The fact that I know some cyclists personally might affect what they say about the product we're pitching. They might be biased and may not want to say what they truly think therefore skewing some of our data.

I feel like our best idea is where the pressure sensor is the addition to the shoe, this leaves the options for choosing your own shoe, cleat, and pedal, open to the consumer.

Our step by step plan for asking people is to start by asking how much they would pay for a power output computer for their bicycle. We should ask them if they would even need it and how useful it would be to them. Then after we get that price ask them which of our three product ideas they like best and how much they would be willing to pay for each of those. By doing this we will be able to see which product idea they like if any and how much we might be able to sell the product for.

I was able to talk to three cyclists about the project that we wanted to start. I was able to get a great amount of data about how our product should be designed and how it should work.
The first person i talked to was a guy on the U of I cycling team, i asked him what design he liked best and he said the one that goes between the shoe and the cleat and then i asked him how much he would pay for a product like this. He said that because he's in college and doesn't necessarily need this product that he would pay around 200 dollars for it, which is the price we are hoping to sell it for. The second person i asked was Louie Fountain, a very good cyclocross rider from Moscow. I pitched him the three different designs we had looked into and he said that he didn't like any of them because he thought that they would get in the way of how cyclists did things. Like with our idea of putting it between the cleat and the shoe, he said that most cyclists have a specific tightness or height that they like to have that at so that would mess with their system too much. The idea that he pitched back to us is that we put the pressure sensor in an insole that they could put in the shoe, this was an amazing idea and what we hope to do with our project. He also said that because he isn't super into his numbers concerning power output that he wouldn't want to spend 1-3k on something like that. He said that he would however pay 200 for it. The last cyclist that i talked to was a past U of I cycling club member. He liked the insole idea and also said that he would pay 200 for it.

My recommendation for this project is that we would want the pressure sensor in the insole for a shoe so that it wouldn't mess with the bikers specific setup and that we could sell this product to the amateur biker for between 200 and 300. If we are able to make this product for less than that we may have a very good product for the market.

Project Management

The tasks that had to be accomplished for us to reach our milestone of deciding on a product idea to pursue were for each member to bring at least one idea to the meeting that he/she had researched, benchmarked, and confirmed that there was a desire for in the market.

Each member succeeded in bringing at least one idea to the meeting.

Our ideas:

• Teapot with temperature readout
• Inclement weather alarm clock
• Automated plant watering system
• Heating strips for snow melt
• Remote controlled powered air hose reel
• Automatic inventory counter

We picked the four best viable ideas, discussed their pros and cons, ultimately choosing the automatic inventory counter as our best product idea.

Tasks for proceeding with automatic inventory counter.

• Researching arguing code for counter - Steven
• Research who will buy - Christian
• Research demand for counter - Christian
• Start PowerPoint slides - Kelsey 
• Brainstorm prototype ideas - Austin

Data/Evidence

The following are the detailed reports from each member on their task of coming up with ideas.


Kelsey Rayborn

My idea for the final design project is a teapot that would be able to tell you if your tea is too cold or too hot to drink. This teapot would do this with the help of an arduino temperature sensor and a crystal LCD screen that would display the temperature of your tea.As far as other product on the market that already do this, there isn't much in the way of actual teapots; however, many tea kettles do tell you the temperature of your water. The problem with this is that most people don't make their tea in their kettle, they pour the hot water in a teapot or mug. It would be extremely convenient for them to be able to tell the exact temperature of their tea so that they aren't disappointed with the wrong temperature of tea after they already went through all the trouble of making the tea in the first place.



Steven Elsbury

I started by asking people for suggestions to problems that they might need fixed and such but I got very few useful responses. Most did not fit the project description and were not feasible or too simple and boring. I took the few ideas that I liked and researched them a little bit to find out what was being done already. As far as the inclement weather alarm clock it seemed like something that would be much more viable to do with a smart phone app and in fact was done that way in a couple places online. My other ideas were an automated plant watering system and heating strips on wheelchair ramps (it is almost impossible to wheel a wheelchair up a ramp by yourself with any frost, snow or ice on it before hand). The plant watering was done very extensively so there's a demand but unfortunately there were so many products on the market that I felt it would be difficult to be original. The wheelchair ramp idea solved much more of a real problem and could be expanded to a lot more everyday customers to expand our target audience. I thought that it could be coupled with some tape or something to increase traction. When I asked about whether people were interested in it I got some enthusiastic responses but nothing spectacular. There are a lot of competing products most of which are designed to be embedded underneath the concrete itself so that they would have to be put in before it was poured which would be very difficult. My idea would be specifically for people remodeling without wanting to spend a whole lot of money and who only needed a very specific path to and from their cars or to the mailbox or something along those lines to be clear so that they could do so safely without having to worry about falling down or needing to take the time to shovel beforehand. It would be especially helpful for older or disabled people for whom shoveling would be a difficulty and the wait for someone else to come shovel gets in the way.



Austin Tanner

Remote controlled powered air hose reel

Problem
No inexpensive, convenient-to-use, remote controlled, powered air hose reels in construction industry.

Customer Segment
Commercial and Residential construction businesses; homeowners; welders;

Solution
Air powered hose reel that uses light (recommended "eel hose") air hose for increased distance as well as lighter reel. Wind-up and freewheeling will be controlled by tugs on the air hose (versus a physical remote control).


Other products that relate:

Air powered dual hose reel
http://www.stoneagetools.com/Manual_Inserts/SBT-LS_Manual_Insert.pdf

electric hose reel
http://www.coxreelsales.com/motor_driven_reels.html
sold at sears for nearly $800
http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00922785000P?sid=IDx01192011x000001&kispla=00922785000P&srccode=cii_17588969&cpncode=31-54468257-2

powered remote control hose reel
http://www.globalspec.com/FeaturedProducts/Detail/HannayReels/Hannay_Reels_RM_Remote_Control_Reel_Series/66013/0

Benchmarking

• Our product better because the windup can be controlled remotely without the need for a physical remote control (this also means that a person will not have to carry around a remote all day).
•  Our product uses light hose for longer hose length on reel, and lighter reel weight.
• Our product would hopefully use an air-powered motor to eliminate the need for any additional hoses or cords (the air-powered motor will use the air plugged into the reel).

Christian O'Bryan

My idea was to make an inventory counter that uses weight sensors and push buttons to figure out how many items are left in stock and when you need to refill it depending on how fast certain items are used and then display them on an lcd screen. I thought of this idea when my dad was talking about the hospital vending machines. He said that the nurses are supposed to take an item out and then punch it into the computer but they never do. Our idea was to have the weight sensors and the push buttons do everything so that the nurses can just take the items and not worry about messing up the system. Another use of this would be at fast food restaurants because they have no way of telling when the soda machines are out other than costumers telling them. So this could be a weight sensor that goes in the machine and displays how much is left on a lcd screen. There are many other businesses that could benefit from this system.

Estimating Profitability

Step 1:   
      Sales revenue: ($2500)(200) = $500,000

Step 2: 
     Cost of goods sold: $300,000

Step 3: 
     Gross margin: $500,000 - $300,000 = $200,000

Step 4: 
     Operating earnings: $200,000 - (.25 * $500,000) = $75,000

Step 5:
     Net income: $75,000 - ($75,000 * .15) = $63,750


Net Profit Margin: ($63,750) / ($500,000) = 12.75%
     

Quick Test

The 10 questions:

1. 7: It could be applicable to many situations, and we have asked other people if this would be helpful. These people all seemed pretty excited about the idea.
2. 2: There is a market for counters and inventory counters, but there are no really good products out there.
3. 8: This product would be extremely useful, and because it is the only thing on the market that is similar to this, we could charge more.
4. 5: If we could sell this product for a lot, then it would be better if we had to send a lot to get to a product that people would want to buy.
5. 5: This is very similar to the previous question, if we could sell this product for a large amount, we could spend more to make it.
6. 8: Our product is different from most of the competition, which uses bar codes. Ours would use either a scale or a clicker that would count the number of items taken out of the machine.
7. 4: this could take a while, because we would have to most likely go through the company that makes the vending machines in order to actually get our product on the market and that could take a while.
8. 7: Materials aren't too terribly expensive, because we could just build one prototype and then make sure that it works, and then you would have to build the final project that you would have to actually sell.
9. 8: We would have a couple of different options in the way of how our product actually works. we can either have a scale or a clicker that counts the number of things taken out. We could also have a few different way of how we integrated our product into the vending machine,
10. 8: We are just counting inventory, and that doesn't really require updating our design if it still works well.

Final Score: 62

Project Management

In our Team meeting the main thing we did was figure out the goals for our project. The goals we chose were:
-Marketable
-It needs to use the Arduino
-Patentable
-It needs to be good engineering

The next thing we did was figure out our tasks that each one of us would need to individually accomplish over Thanksgiving break. The overall idea of this task was for each of us to come up with a project design that fit our goals and then present it to the group in our next meeting.

Lastly we set our next meeting time which will be Monday November 26.

Designing Products that Succeed in the Market Place

      In today's market there is not much room for many new products. It is said that nine out of ten new products fail when introduced to the public. This is something that all designers want to avoid when they think of a new idea or design; they want their product to be very popular so that it will sell. The problem with this is that sometimes a product is introduced to the market and no one wants to buy it. 
      There are a few things that a designer can do in order to avoid wasting time on designing a product that no one would want to buy. One of these things is asking colleagues, friends, and family what they think of your idea. If many of them are really excited about the idea, that is an indicator that others would want to buy your final product. When doing this, it is a good idea to get a large range of input so that you are looking into a larger customer segment. Another thing you could do is actually ask these people about problems they want to be solved. If your product solves a problem for someone, they will want to buy your product so that they can fix their problems. They can gives you ideas on your future products, and these ideas would easily translate to a market. One other thing you could do is try to align your design with the 5 drives of human behavior. If your design aligns with most of these drives, people are more likely to want to buy your product. 
      For our portfolio project, we would want to use all of these ideas so that our product has the greatest chance of succeeding in the market. But some of the ideas are more important than others. The most important one to us is asking others if they would buy your product because it will provide the most insight into today's market. If many of the people you ask do want to buy your idea, then it is likely that many other people will also want your product. The next important is asking others for their ideas. This will give you insight into the lives of the people who would eventually be purchasing your product. The last is aligning your design with the drives of human behavior. This would help us to make our design what people want.