Laundry Lads

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Clothing storage in Dartmouth laundry rooms is ineffective, unorganized, and unattractive.

Magnitude and Frequency

Over 60% of all full-time college students live in college housing
Around 5,300 colleges and universities in the US alone
The average college student does their laundry does their laundry once a week.

USERS/PURCHASERS

Users: individuals using shared washer and dyers, whether that be provided by universities, apartment buildings, or any other suppliers.

Purchasers: large companies, organizations, and/or landlords supplying washers and dryers to residents, customers, etc.

Since our purchaser and user are two different groups, we conducted user research on Dartmouth students through surveys and interviews in order to demonstrate the magnitude of this problem. From our research, we found that the vast majority of Dartmouth students have encountered this issue before with over 88% of users agreeing that current laundry storage mechanisms at Dartmouth need improvement.

Some standout quotes from our research:

STATE OF THE ART

Top of the Dryer/Table

Unorganized, risk of losing clothes

Drawers

Unattractive, difficult to clean, difficult to unload

Laundry Baskets

Unorganized, difficult to unload

Existing Patents

All the existing patents we looked into incorporated many of the features that our product has, but none of them combined them all into one neat package. Also, none of them had multiple bags that could hold different people's laundry at the same time.

SPECIFICATIONS

User-Friendliness: Use of product must be intuitive with a short learning curve for busy students. Will be tested on learning time by students. Benchmark is 30 seconds (How long can students figure out how to properly use the product?)

Durability: Product must last for a long time to convince purchasers that it is worth the investment. Will be tested based on pre-known durability of products used. Benchmark is durability of table (30 years)

Size: Specifically for Dartmouth, product must be able to fit inside small laundry rooms and not be bigger than the current state of the art. Will be tested based on measurements of existing tables in the laundry rooms. Benchmark of 4’ - 3’ - 3’.

Organization: Clothes must be easily identifiable to prevent students from wasting time and to solve the current issue of clothes being haphazardly thrown onto the table. Will be tested on time taken to positively identify your clothing. Will be tested by users using a matching game. Benchmark of 30 seconds.

Strength: Product must be able to withstand the force of multiple loads of laundry to be usable. Will be tested based on the ability of force to be exerted on it. Benchmark of 45N per bag and 300N for the entire structure.

Easily Cleanable: Product must be easily cleanable so as to not increase cost after purchase. Will be tested based on time to clean the entire product. Benchmark of 5 minutes.

Cost: Product must be reasonably priced to convince purchasers to buy it. Will be tested based on the price of materials used. Benchmark of $225.

Aesthetic: Product must be aesthetically pleasing so as to motivate purchasers to replace the current state of the art and incentivize users to use it. Will be tested based on a student survey of a comparison between table and our product. Benchmark is table.

PROTOTYPES

Base Prototypes

We first started with a rectangular base to emulate the current state of the art in Dartmouth laundry rooms which is a simple table. However, we quickly realized that this is not space efficient and we can get more surface area per hole by making the base more square-shaped.

We then made a few adjustments to the base accordingly in order to maximize space as much as possible since Dartmouth laundry rooms are notoriously small and packed.

Here is a mockup of our final base design on SolidWorks.

Bag Prototypes

Our team started prototyping a bag with a velcro design after consulting with an engineering librarian. Although this prototype worked fairly well, it is only a scaled down version of the actual bags that we needed, so we could not test it with actual clothes. Upon consulting with our machine shop instructor who advised us against using velcro, we decided to pivot to using a drawstring bag instead. This way, we can be sure that the bag can hold a large amount of clothes without succumbing to their weight.

While the drawstring bag solved the issue of clothes falling from the bag, the strings were too cumbersome to operate and were not aesthetically pleasing.

Finally, we decided to go with a laundry bag design for simplicity and since it's something that our users are already familiar with, thus shortening the learning curve for our product.

Connection Prototypes

Our initial design used screw hooks to connect the bags to the base. However, we were concerned with them wearing out the bag over time and reducing the product's overall shelf life.

Our machine shop instructor advised us to use a detachable metal ring that will go on top of the bags around each hole. This way, users can simply lift the metal ring and let the bag fall into their personal laundry hamper with their clothes. This reduces the strain on the bag and also prevents us from having to drill holes into the wood base which may possibly weaken it and further reduce its longevity.

Final Design

Our final design incorporates all the modifications that we made during through the several iterations of our prototypes.

It features a 2x2 wooden base, PVC pipes legs, a detachable metal ring, and a mesh laundry bag.

Dimensions

TESTING AND USER FEEDBACK

Analysis Plan

Testing

Stress Equation

What users had to say:

"It was a little difficult to use and understand the mechanism at first, especially the metal ring. Besides that I think it would really improve the laundry room.” - Anonymous '25

“I think it is a really creative idea that should be implemented in laundry rooms here [at Dartmouth]. I would like it to be a little smaller and easier to get under” - Anonymous '24

ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY

Ethical Considerations

Manufacturing
1. Observing ethical labor practices
2. Utilizing energy efficient manufacturing
Materials
1. Using ethically sourced, environmentally friendly materials
Safety
1. Ensuring all sharp edges are completely smoothed down to prevent any injuries
2. Ensuring the table can withstand a person leaning on top of it
Usability
1. Providing extra metal rings for those who attempt to steal

Steps to Increase Sustainability

Recycled Materials
1. Using 100% recycled materials to build our product and also recycling parts of our product for future use

Increase Shelf Life
1. Building a high-quality product that will last for decades to reduce landfill waste

Detachable Parts
1. Allowing individual parts to be easily detachable so that they can be replaced when needed, prolonging the life cycle of the product

BUSINESS PLAN AND ECONOMICS

Breaking Even

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