Brush Net

To:         Wei-Chih Wang

From:     Rick Politician

Date:      March 22, 2002

Subject: Extra Credit-Brush Net

 

Introduction

The purpose of this memo is to report the results of my extra credit design project.  I had to design and build an extra-credit engineering project during the last week in order to turn in by March 22.  In this memo, I plan on providing a list of constraints for the project, a description of the brainstorming process, an analysis of the two prototypes and observations from testing the prototype's performance.

 

Constraints

The first limitation I had was that the project needed to be finished by March 22.  This is the end of the quarter and the last day to turn in projects for the class.  This deadline proved to be a little difficult due to extra studying that needed to be done for my other classes' finals.  The lack of time meant I could build a project that I could immediately figure out how to build.

 

As far as materials go, I only had what I could find around the apartment and a couple things from the hardware or fabric stores.  This meant the project had to be sort of simple in design and not too big.  The materials restriction is a result of lack of money, transportation and, again, time.

 

Problem Solving

I had four separate brainstorming sessions with various friends in order to think up a feasible and worthwhile project.  The first idea was a tool to help with flossing.  Floss often slips out of one's fingers or cuts into them.  I wanted to make an easy maneuver, two-handed flossing tool.  One idea was some sort of finger attachments like a thimble with a clasp on the end that would latch onto the floss.  Another idea would be handles (like those on scissors) for each index finder with clasps again on the end.  Unfortunately I could not find any clasps that would work or figure how to attach them to the thimbles or handles so I crossed off this idea as feasible for me.

 

Another idea sprung from my problem of always having cold feet around the house unless I am wearing shoes or slippers.  I was thinking if I suspended my feet off the cold ground, then they would be warmer.  The design required connecting tennis balls in an oval around the outside of the foot.  Next, I would lace string in between the tennis balls in the middle of the oval for my feet to suspend on.  For this project, I could not think of how to connect the tennis balls together in a strong way or make the string tight enough to hold my 82 kgs.

 

We have a lot of pictures in our apartment and sometimes they become ruined from hanging them up, parties or just looking at them a lot.  I figured if we needed to look through negatives if we wanted to make more copies of the pictures, we needed a quick way to do it.  I was thinking of taking a small box, 4x4x9", turning into a viewer for negatives.  I would insert a light bulb in to the bottom of the box and make slits above for the negatives to slide into.  On the top of the box, I would cut out a whole and stick in a long cardboard tube that just large enough in diameter to be able to see one negative in.  The main problem with this idea was I thought the light bulbs we had would be too bright and hot for our eyes and the box, respectively.

 

Another invention idea came about after one of my roommates tried to clean out her yogurt cup, but could not because of how difficult it is for spoons to reach into the corners.  Therefore, we were thinking a spoon with spatula edges would be perfect for getting into those tough to reach places.  The reason this invention would not work is that I could not think of way attach spatula edges to a spoon with any proficiency.

 

What I finally chose to build, the brush net, was a derivative of my female roommates never cleaning the hair out of their brushes because it "took to long."  The brush net fit both of my constraints in that it would only take a few hours to build and perfect, I could build it out of cheaper materials that I had access to.  Also, the invention seemed very useful, as all three of the girls were very excited about the idea.

 

Prototypes

Solving the hair in the brush problem, I decided, needed to be done by some sort of netting that would lie on the brush base.  When the hair built up, one would only have to lift up the net and remove the clump of hair from on top of the net.  The net could again be put back on the brush and used again.

 

The first prototype I built had a steel wire frame and interlacing dental floss.  This prototype ended up looking like a tennis racket for gerbils.  The main problem with this idea was that the teeth of a brush do point straight up.  The holes in the racket may let the tips of the teeth through, but as the racket is pushed towards the brush base the slant of the teeth will push along the sides of the racket strings and keep from reaching the brush base.

 

Another idea also came up.  This one uses nylon mesh as the net.  The nylon is pushed all the way to the brush base and tightened on to the brush from the back with string that is interwoven in to the mesh.  There is also a slit cut in the nylon so the net does not cover the handle of the brush.

 

Results

I had all three of me female roommates apply the brush net to their brushes.  They each brushed their hair leaving hair in the brush.  Then, they removed the brush net and all the hair came off with ease.

 

Conclusion

I believe this is an excellent extra credit project.  It cost me less than 10 dollars to build and less than 8 hours in total to brainstorm, analyze, build and test.  Even more, the invention seems useful and was received very well by the 5 females that heard the idea and the three that tested it.