The BudClip evolved from the concept that if a material, such as a string, or in this case earbuds, have the lose ends held together in a circle, then the material will not tangle. We took this concept and designed a product to prevent earbuds from tangling.
In the beginning, our original idea was to hold the ends of the earbuds together by using magnets. We created a rough prototype by hot gluing small magnets to the back of the earpieces on a pair of cheap earbuds. Even after some modifications, the magnets weren’t strong enough and looked quite bulky. This lead us to scrap the magnet idea and try to figure out a new way to hold the earbuds together.
After talking with a some people about our idea we discovered that most people own Apple earbuds and dont want to purchase a new pair. This was really great advice because it allowed us to focus on making our product an attachment to any type of earbuds and separate ourselves from the current market that consists of earbuds with built-in tangle free features.
Using inspiration from the little attachment found on apple headphones, we designed a similar piece in a 3D printing design software called TinkerCad. In our version we added one more slot in order to hold the plug together along with the two buds. This actually took a lot of time even though the piece appears to be pretty simple. We had to measure the cords of the earbuds and transfer the measurements into holes of the correct size. We also had to figure out how far into the center of the piece the holes should be, all while keeping the whole piece as compact as possible. Another struggle we had was trying to figure out the best width for the opening to the holes; we had to make it wide enough to slide the cord into, but also as thin as possible so the cord wouldn’t slide out. After printing our first prototype, we tested it and thought about what to change and then implemented these changes into our TinkerCad design. One problem with working with the 3D printer was that it takes a really long time to print even something as small as our piece. This made it so we could usually only print one model a class, come back the next day, make changes and print a new prototype that would be ready the next day. This made it hard to quickly find the best sizing for our clip. This process happened over and over almost everyday with slight adjustments until we found the best fit and sizing. We thought it would be pretty cool to have a logo on the front of the clip so we decided to indent a “W” to represent our town name. The first time we tried this the “W” was indented too far leaving the piece too thin and causing holes. We adjusted the depth of the “W” and it turned out much better. This was pretty much the best model that we could achieve on the LulzBot mini which can only print in a plastic filament, one color at a time. We were pretty happy with our prototype, so we thought it would be interesting to do some market research. We handed out the BudClip to eight freshman and asked them to try it out for a few weeks and provide us with feedback. Overall the response was very positive and gave us an idea on possible pricing and how we could modify the prototype even more.
Mr. Moody really wanted us to try to change our design drastically since we had kept our overall design pretty similar to the first one we ever printed. We came up with three new ideas and tried to create all of them with the 3D printer. Our first new design looked pretty similar to our other one but it was made up of two pieces that clipped together that would create a very secure fit around the plug that wouldn’t come off unless you wanted it to. This was inspired by the feedback that we received that people were afraid they would lose the piece or it would fall off. This design was pretty difficult to design because there can’t be any overhang when 3D printing, so we had to print the pieces that would be inserted into slots in the body separately and glue them in after printing. This idea didn’t work at all because the “ledges” were printed flat on the print bed which caused them to form an “elephant foot”. This is when the plastic on the very bottom layer spread out creating the piece to be too big for the pre-designed slots. Our next “new” idea was a taller piece that was concave on the sides to allow the extra cord to be wrapped around. This design was well-liked by many peers and if we were to continue working we would most likely try to perfect it and offer it in addition to the original BudClip. The last “new” design was a clip that was designed to attach onto the hard plastic sections of the earbuds. This design looks very simple but it actually took almost four days to create. We didn’t have time to finish with this design and were only able to print a macro version of one side of the clip, but it would be something we would like to continue with if we had more time.
We were very excited to hear that Mr. Moody received a grant to purchase a new 3D printer for the innovation lab! The printer arrived two days before December vacation, so Aiden and I assembled it; however, we didn’t have enough time to print anything. When we returned from break we started experimenting with the new printer right away. With the LulzBot Taz 6 and a flexydually head, we are able to print in both a rubbery bendable material and in the usually plastic! This was really beneficial for our project because it allowed the sides to stretch apart and easily slide the cord in and then stretch back to secure the cord in the hole. The ability to print two filaments at once allowed us to print the body section in an orange flexible filament, and leaving the “W” in hard black plastic. This improved both the aesthetics and functionality of the BudClip. With only a few slight changes, the BudClip was ready to be presented at the Expo!