Valerie Sonnenberg
Smart Timing
In Projects 3: Invention and Innovation, we were tasked with creating a new invention and taking it from concept to creation, building a business around it. We learned about how entrepreneurship works while using the design process to create a product that people would actually want. We created the Smart Timing Distract-Away, a box that turns your cell phone to do not disturb with an RFID sticker and tracks the amount of time it is on the pad. The data is then sent to the cloud to track study time. See below for the process.
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Process
Customer Interviews
Our initial assignment was to create an invention to help with education in some way. We put together a list of interview questions and interviewed 200 people to see what was a need that we could fulfill. We found the hardest thing about studying for many was becoming distracted by their cell phones.
Brainstorming
We came up with many solutions to this problem, including a safe to lock the phone in for a certain amount of time, an app that when turned on would negate phone capability, a cell phone case with a blind to block the phone screen, and a small box that would make the phone silent while inside. We looked up patents already in the field to make sure our idea was novel. We decided on the box and did another round of interviews, asking if people thought this was a good idea.
Feedback iteration #1
After receiving feedback that the locking box would not be used due to fear of emergency calls not being heard, we pivoted to the phone case idea. We designed an initial model in SolidWorks and tried to create a rudimentary version of what the hardware would have to be.
Feedback iteration
After building our rudimentary phone case and 3D printing a small sacle version, we found the case would be far too clunky and impractical for anyone to use. Therefore, we pivoted once more to create a small pad that would turn the phone to Do not Disturb and track the amount of time the phone was on the pad. We began prototyping the hardware and software of this pad with breadboards and RFID tags.
CAD design
Once we had the hardware we were going to use nailed down, we created CAD models of the actual product to contain the components.
Final prototype of hardware
We made a small prototype of the product out of cardboard to see if the dimensions and CAD were correct. It fit all the electronics and we were ready to start building the final product.
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Final version of hardware
Our final version of the hardware was a completely functional timer triggered by a button when the phone was set on the RFID tag, turning it to Do not Disturb mode.
Software
While the hardware was being created, we were also working on the software. We programmed the Arduino to turn ont he timer and got a Photon to send the data to the cloud.
Business analysis
Based on the interviews we conducted, we extrapolated financial models for how Smart Timing would do over the next several years, whether it would be a profitable and viable company.
Website creation
Finally, we created a website to collect the data from the Smart Timing device to track usage time and study data.
Final Pitch
Our final presentation consisted of a synopsis of our data collection, hardware and software development, and financial analysis of the viability of our company.