· Leader/Project Manager— Marlin Jenkins

• Communicator/Correspondent—Thaddaeus Hunt
• Lead Designer/Art Director—Marc Long

 

 

Member #1: Marlin Jenkins

Workload: Leader/Project Manager

Area of Interest: All things design and entrepreneurship

Dream Job: Entrepreneur/inventor/director

 

Member #2: Thaddaeus Hunt
Workload: Communicator/Correspondent
Area of Interest: Audio/Visual Creations
Dream Job: Professional Music Produce/Creative Genius

 

Member #3: Marc Long

Workload: Lead Designer/Art Director

Area of Interest: All things good in life

Dream Job: Video game designer

 

 

Dogs don’t usually care what happens to their bowls as long as there is water or food in it. Usually it’s the owner who spends so much time and energy cleaning up spills when a dog bowl gets tipped over. It’s time for a better dog bowl, one that can last the test of time and everything canine, its time for the Indestructibowl.

 

OTHER PRODUCTS

 

Currently there are a lot of companies in the “non-tip dog bowl” market, but they all seem to stem off of one basic design. There isn’t much to their technical design other than some may have different patterns, but most of them are made of either stainless steel or copper. The most unique design that I’ve seen was in the shape of a bunt cake, other than that all of them are basically just simple bowls.
Where we could really make a difference is if:

1. We design a dog bowl with a sensor on it (kind of like the bathroom sinks in public places, where when you put your hands near the sensor the water will release) or:

2. We design a dog bowl that has an auto refill when the water gets low in the bowl. We could also add a thermometer or cooling mechanism that would ensure the water stayed at a certain temperature.

3. We make the dog bowl out of incredibly heavy and durable materials so as to withstand the test of time, and give the consumer confidence.
According to the results of a U.S. Pet Ownership poll done in 2012, there are 83.3 million owned dogs in America, a number that continues to rise every year. With this definite increase there would be a strong market for a product like ours if done correctly.

 

 

INDESTRUCTABOWL

 

1.     What is YOUR product? Describe your newly designed product. Material, cost, color, weight etc..

 

Our product is the “indestructibowl” It will be made primarily of a heavy cast iron base. The base will be coated in a rubber that will help ensure the bowl does not damage the surrounding surfaces. The actual cast iron will certainly cost more than some plastics or light metals, but the benefits of having the bowl heavy enough to be stable will be worth the price increase for the consumer. The colors will come in black, white, red, and blue. The bowl will some what resemble a shallow volcano, in that its base is very wide.  The additional options of the bowl such as temperature control and gravity fed refill will also be made of superb materials. A dense BPA free plastic such as acrylic may be used for the gravity fed water or food storage reservoir. In the metal family, cast iron is a better insulator than many other metals.* Combined with a rubber coating we believe that the bowl will maintain a cooler temperature for longer periods of time than traditional dog bowls.  If heating is needed, we will offer a chew proof heat coil add on that sits under the bowl and keeps the food or water above freezing.

 

2.     Development

 

As we worked on our design we needed to figure out the look and feel for it. What we decided was to keep it simple. Since there are already numerous “non tip” dog bowls on the market we decided to use the traditional dog  bowl design, which is in the shape of a volcano. Having a wide base and smaller top made sense since it provides optimal traction from the bottom of the bowl while also allowing us to decide on how deep we wanted to make the actual bowl.

Our main focus was to make a durable and reliable bowl for dog owners. We had several designs in mind for our bowl. One had a more technological feel to it where it measured the temperature of the water in the bowl or implementing a sensor that auto refills. However, the final consensus was to keep it simple. Implementing technology such as sensors and temperature control would have proven difficult and more bothersome than necessary for the normal consumer. Instead we took the classic design and kept the concept of an auto refill only instead of being run by an automated system it simply relies on gravity to refill the contents of the bowl. Overall our product is a more reliable and efficient version of previous models.

 

 

     

3.  Why did this need to be redesigned? How did you IMPROVE the product?

 

There are many good dog bowls out there, but none that truly feel like it has the durability of even some of the dog chew toys out there. Some companies such as Kong make chew toys out of a dense rubber that many dogs will hardly ever be able to destroy. However, no one yet makes a dog bowl quite to these standards, even though many dogs abuse their dog bowls more than their chew toys. We can improve our product by using better materials, and making a product so strong and tough that any consumer will be able to have confidence right away when seeing our product.
 

 

4. Who will use this product? And how will this new design enhance the users overall experience with a product of this type?

 

Those that use this product will be dog owners across the country that are raising young dogs that chew on everything, or have large dogs that can’t help but destroy their surroundings and dog bowls. Owners will be able to know that the dog bowl will stay where it is put, and keep the contents in the bowl.