SMACK & The Sunny Study

Canopy: Philbert Sun Shade

Portable Desk: SportBrella Folding Table

Glare Reduction

Glare reduction is very important in showing how effective our product and competitors' products are at reducing the risk of eye strain. In order to test the glare reduction we set up a dark room where we were able to analyze each product. This room was completely dark except for one sun lamp, we then positioned the computer 5 feet away, facing the lamp. Using a luminance meter we measured the amount of glare coming from the screen. We used this process with only the laptop, the laptop with SunShader, and lastly the laptop with our product. Using the measurements we got from the luminance meter we plugged them into a Disability Glare equation which in turn showed us how effective each product was at reducing glare.

Our testing showed that the SunShader (Rival Product) reduced the disability glare by ~3%, while our product the Sunny Study was able to reduce disability glare by ~5% which was more than 1.5 times of our rival. We plan to reduce the disability glare by 10% as we improve our product.

Ease of Assembly

This was a very important aspect of our product since we do not want users to spend copious amounts of time trying to set up our product. To test this we timed ourselves setting up the SunShader, a collapsible table the SportBrella, and our product the Sunny Study. We repeated this process ten times for each product and took the average. 

The results show that the SunShader was able to be set up in ~15 seconds, the SportBrella in ~53 seconds, and our product in ~27 seconds. The time of 27 seconds is suitable but as we improve our product we expect this time to go down.

Strength

Strength is important since we want our product to be able to hold a laptop comfortably while also being able to withstand any unintended forces such as the user leaning on the desk. To test the strength of products we incrementally added weight until failure. We tested both the SportBrella and our product. When testing we witnessed that the SportBrella was able to hold ~25 pounds, however, as more weight was added the legs began to bend. When we tested our product we were able to hold a whopping 5 pounds. As the next set of weights was added the 3d printed hinges snapped and the table collapsed. We plan to tackle this problem by molding the hinges which should add more structural stability.  In the future, our goal is to be able to hold 15 pounds comfortably.

Weight

The weight of our product is vital since if our product is overly heavy the users will be less likely to carry it around with them in their backpacks. We weighed all of the products and all of which were under 5 pounds, our product weighed in at 4.0lbs, the SportBrella weighed 2.1lbs, and the SunShader weighed 1.3 pounds. Although our product was under our 5-pound goal, we believe that the weight will be reduced more as we continue improving our design.

Testing Summary

The following chart shows the summary of the testing we conducted.

Ethics

To ensure safety, we must ensure we are avoiding materials that are recognized as carcinogens. Materials should be sourced in an ethnical manner. Labor laws must be followed during testing and manufacturing. 

Sustainability 

Currently, the materials used for the Sunny Study consist of Acrylic, PVC, Plastic, and Aluminum. We aim to find more sustainable materials to use. We also aimed to make our product easily disassembled. For manufacturing and transportation, we will make sure to use sustainable packaging materials, deliver in  bulk to reduce carbon footprint. In future prototypes, we aim to increase the sustainability of our product by making a canopy prototypes out of thin acrylic and switching to bioplastics.  

Business Plan 

Economics

Our economics is based on a monthly basis. Pricing for laser cutting is based on a 5-year plan to purchase a laser cutter including interest. Also, being a startup, the reason the machinery and assembly costs are so low is that the executives would be doing most of the work. The variable prices are also inflated, these prices are expected to decrease when buying materials in bulk. From our research, we concluded that there are roughly 11,000 items similar to our product being sold each month. Using this value we were able to see how many units we would need to sell in order to break even, however, this is also based on our inflated variable costs. As our product improves and we decrease the price we will be able to break even at an affordable cost without taking up 25% of the market.