Process

Nicole Magnuson-Murray and Laura Clayton

The problem that we were trying to fix in the beginning was to clean the whiteboard without leaving spots. We weren’t even thinking about efficiency at the time. The first solution we decided to prototype and test was to have a long piece of wood with fabric covering the whole thing. We tried putting thin pieces of wood above and below the board and attached string from the eraser to the wood. The idea was to have it slide along the wood, but when we tested the idea, it barely erased anything on the board. The strings didn’t slide well on the slivers of wood. After that we thought we would put aside the idea of it sliding on the wood and just focus on the eraser part.

We experimented with pushing the piece of wood and fabric by hand but it didn't erase much of anything. We then realized we needed more pressure on the board to erase better so we put a couple magnets spread along the wood behind the cloth. That made it erase much better in the places with the magnets, but the area’s with no magnets did not get cleaned at all. We  continued to add magnets so the whole height of the board would be covered. Although it erased the board completely with all the magnets, they made it too heavy to push by hand.

Once we learned a little more about what we needed to make this work, we tried to find a way to use fewer magnets and spread out the force of each one along the stick. We put cardboard between the board and the magnets to maintain the pressure where there wasn’t magnetic power, but it didn't erase well enough in the spots lacking the pressure. We also tried putting a small piece of wood between the magnets and the board hoping it would be stronger, but it stopped erasing because the wood was too thick. We tried the same thing with a piece of metal, and force still weekend because there was too much stuff in the way of the magnetic pressure on the board.

After that, we thought maybe we could find a way to leave all the magnets and try to reduce the pressure without interrupting its ability to erase well. One way we tried to accomplish this was by putting pieces of paper towels and paper to separate the magnets from the board but, unfortunately, that didn’t work too well. After that, we attempted to minimize the surface area touching the board along the eraser. We took little wires and attached two to the magnets to see if the little surface area with lots of pressure per unit area would make it easier to push and erase well. That didn’t work very well either. We thought it might have been because the wires were a little bent and we could not  straighten it. We put aside that idea to pursue another solution.

At this point, we were having trouble moving forward, so we decided to put the current solution of the long eraser to the side and try a hand held eraser that spins. To prototype that we attached a circular cloth to a drill. When we tested it, it ended up being heavy and to hard to move. It also moved along the board in a curvy way and it wanted to move by itself, making difficult to erase the board. We also tried this solution by attaching a normal whiteboard eraser to a little motor powered fan, but when we touched it to the board it wasn't powerful enough to continue spinning.

We then decided to talk with Mr. Moody and we went through our options of what we could do with our project because it was getting close to the Expo. We thought through what we had already tried and the last option was to faile, that is to declare that we discovered a lot of ways that don’t work very well.  (We spell "faile" with an "e" because when it comes to innovation, small failures along the way are normal so "faile" shouldn't be a four-letter-word.) We didn’t care what we had to do to make failing not the end result, however.  We decided to go back and work on our first idea of the long eraser and keep trying to get that to work because we were sure there was a solution. We were having trouble finding a way to make the eraser erase well, but not be too hard to push.

After a little while, we came up with the idea to not have to push the eraser on the board with our hands but instead pull it with strings. We added strings to the eraser and we would just pull it across the board with a pulley system. This solution made it so much easier to get the eraser across the board, while still erasing well. The eraser would make it across the board fast but would skew a little in the process, but we think it would be fixed if we added more magnets so there would be no room to move. Also, to pull the eraser across the whole board, you have to walk somewhat far but we would work on shortening the distance.

At one point during the time of making our project, one problem we came across was the idea that someone might not want to erase the whole board at once. Because our project was one long stick, solving this problem was hard, but we came up with the idea of cutting the long piece of wood in three pieces that you could connect together to erase different parts of the board. This never made it too far and we started to pay less attention to solving that problem and so we could focus on all the other ones so we went back to the long stick.

If we had more time, we would consider trying three pieces again. Also, we would addressed the problem of the skewing but adding more magnets and hopefully have it connected to wheels on a track on the top and the bottom. Another thing we work some more on would be shortening the distance someone has to walk to clean the whole board. We ran out of time during class to fix these small issues but we were hoping to continue pursuing this idea.

Throughout this journey of making this innovation, we had many ups and downs. There were times when we were sure our project would work, and other times when we came close to failing, but in the end, everything worked out great. Going into this project, we didn’t think we were going to end up with anything remotely close to to what we got in the end and looking back, I wouldn’t change anything. 

Final

Nicole Magnuson-Murray and Laura Clayton

Why use a little hand sized piece of styrofoam with fuzz on the other side to erase a huge whiteboard? The process of erasing a whole board takes a while and doesn’t always hit all the spots on the board. A teacher has such limited time within a class and can’t waste any of it. Blink erases the board in seconds and gives teachers more time to spend with their students. Or, If a teacher needs to go somewhere quickly, our eraser allows them to be on time.  Also, Blink makes sure to get all the spots that drives some students crazy.

Blink is a long piece of wood with magnets along one side and felt covering the whole thing. This giant eraser has magnets all along the face and a rope attached to the top and bottom that is connected to a pulley system. The pulley system allows you to use the large muscles in your body (your legs, your core) to easily pull the eraser across the board -- much easier than pushing with the smaller muscles in your hand, wrist, and shoulder. This ergonomic design allows anyone to erase the entire board with little effort in the blink of an eye.