Our team was very happy with the prototype we were able to make last weekend at the make-a-thon. As a member of Team Evinco, we were workign with Arielle to try to increase an athlete’s grip during difficult weather conditions. We went into the make-a-thon with one specific goal however, as the weekend progressed we realized we shouldn’t constraint our design ideas and capabilites by focusing on this specific how can we statement!
The original water resistant materials we ordered were a yoga mat and a bath mat. However, we decided we could incorporate another how can we statement into our design and try to create a cover that could be easily attached before a race. Therefore, our team decided to use snap enclosures on our prototype. However, we quickly realized:
- Our materials were too weak for the snap enclosures to work properly
- Both materials wore down very fast during our testing session
- The materials were too bulky to properly wrap around the ring the way we had imagined.
Therefore, our team had to get creative and we began borrowing materials from other teams. We even found a dip plastic one of the teams had purchased and decided to coat an aluminum hand ring in this plastic. As a final prototype, we would be interested to see if it would be possible to also coat the rubber on the glove with the dip plastic to improve traction in bad weather conditions. This is because our materials science Professor informed us that the great traction would be created if the material on the glove and the hand ring were the same. We also believe this will significantly reduce the time necessary to wrap the hand ring and make the process easier for athletes!
Overall, we got really positive feedback from the athletes who attended the make-a-thon. We learned they had not tried a variety of our ideas and while some did not seem promising they thought certain ideas could actually be really successful! We can’t wait to get more feedback from Arielle and Adam!
Gies College of Business || May 2019
Supply Chain Management & Information Systems/Information Technology
Hi Maryam! Thanks for sharing your experience at the Makeathon. I think your team did a fantastic job of keeping an open and creative mind throughout the weekend. One of my favorite aspects of the Makeathon was the collaboration across teams. It’s great that you were able to utilize materials from other teams to test for your prototype. I look forward to seeing your final prototype from the semester! 🙂
Hi Maryam! I enjoyed reading your experience of Make-a-Thon. I remember seeing your team’s product and found it to be really interesting. I was impressed how much effort your team put into researching the best materials for the prototype. I hope you guys continue to work on it and improve it.
Hi Maryam! Great job at the make-a-thon last weekend. Really showed some great work and you guys really put together a fantastic prototype. I remembered seeing you guys in there and you always looked like you were having a blast. Can’t wait to see where you take this from here.
Cbd a thon