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EDSGN 100
Design Project #1
FINAL REPORT
Redesigning An Electric Toothbrush
Introduction to Engineering Design
EDSGN 100 Sec 24
The Crazy People- Goin’ All Night Long
Merna Hanna- moh5445@psu.edu
Chris Velez - cqv5055@psu.edu
Lauren Gabryluk - leg5236@psu.edu
Floyd Dorazio - fjd5063@psu.edu
Submitted to: Prof. Sven Bilen
Date: 10/21/2013
Executive Summary:
The main objective of this project was to redesign the “Dora the Explorer” toothbrush to satisfy
consumer needs and complaints. We gathered this feedback to break down what is most
important and what is out of reach. Our overall concentration of this design project was the
battery life and ergonomics of this toothbrush and we created an efficient way to improve it. We
implemented a rechargeable battery, smaller design for ages 2 to 5 with a better grip and tongue
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cleaner. Our goal is for children to enjoy using this toothbrush while still having an efficient
toothbrush for good oral hygiene.
1.0 Abstract
The objective of this project was to analyze the presented electric toothbrush in the market and
redesign the product based on targeted customer needs. To do this, we vigorously tested every
aspect of the toothbrush, such as noise level, rotations per minute, weight, etc. After collecting our
data, we assessed our data to see where the toothbrush could be improved.
We combined the proposed areas of improvement with our customer needs, brainstormed ideas to
redesign the product, and applied our designs to create a better toothbrush.
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1.1 Initial Problem Statement
Our initial problem statement was to design a product based on a current product in the market
that will better meet the needs of the targeted children's population further. The main components
that we considered redesigning were conservation of power and ergonomics .
2.0 Introduction
The Dora Explorer colgate electric toothbrush is a quality kid’s toothbrush. It is a nonrechargeable electric toothbrush which cleans in a directional rotating spin action. Our goal is to
take this product and through market analysis, benchmarking, and engineering creativity create a
more well rounded toothbrush. Our new and improved design not only performs the job of cleaning
teeth more effectively, but will establish a firmer niche in the market and will result in higher
customer satisfaction.
Our market analysis allowed us to look into the minds of customers and see what they wanted in
a product. Through their feedback we were able to see what the customer wanted a longer lasting
battery life and replaceable toothbrush heads making it more sustainable. By benchmarking our
original product to those on the market we were able to compare to competitors in regards to the
needs of the customer. We began concept generation where we generated a wide variety of
elements in our toothbrush . We then rated these concepts to our customer needs and found four
of the best. Rating these concepts to our original product we created our final design.
3.0 Mission Statement
To redesign the dora the explorer electric toothbrush to be more children friendly. Our goal is to
make it more convenient and efficient for our 2 to 5 year old consumer base. Customer satisfaction
is our main objective to create the most revenue in comparison to other children’s electric
toothbrush markets.
4.0 Customer Needs Assessment
To begin with, we interviewed various consumers with similar colgate electric toothbrushes to
create our initial customer needs list and assessment Our group did this through a survey of
questions concerning the function and style of the toothbrush. The needs were generated off of
their responses and further online research of the product. We also included more practical changes
we believed were necessary.
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Table 1. Initial Customer Needs List
1)appealing colors -glow in the dark
2)automatically dispensed toothpaste
3) bristle stiffness
4)cheap
5)clean,white,gum
6)direction the head and neck vibrate
7)indicator bristles
8)make sure bristles are not weak
9) power of vibration
10) quiet
11)Sensitivity settings
12)wireless
4.1 Hierarchical Customer Needs List
Need Number
Need
Importance
1
Battery Life
5
2
Picture/Color
1
3
Ergonomics
5
4
Ease of head change
4
5
Cost
3
6
Battery Accessibility
4
7
Noise
2
8
Size of Bristles
3
9
Length/Width of Brush Head
3
10
Strength of Brush materials
2
11
Artistic Design
2
12
Cleans Teeth
5
13
Waterproof ability
4
5
4.2 Customer Interviews and Feedback
We interviewed various students from Packer Hall about their toothbrush. These were 11
students with similar colgate electric toothbrushes. From their interviews, we found that 8 out of
11 were not satisfied with the battery life of their toothbrushes. All students interviewed
recommended a change in the aesthetics of the toothbrush. These were the two main needs we
found that need to be addressed in the redesign of the brush. Other online research of the kids
brush showed that battery life was the main concern with the prototype. Due to that, we believe
the most important need to be addressed is the battery life followed by the design of the grip.
Many parents complained about the size of the grip for their child online and said it was hard for
the child to hold. All groups of the surveys were satisfied with the design creativity of the brush.
From the look of the brush head, as a group we decided to make it smaller to easily fit in a childs
mouth. Some parents were critical of the size and said their child was uncomfortable with the
brush head. Also 2 out of 11 students said the brush head was too large for comfort. That is why
we considered it a change that is moderately important.
Our Survey given to students:
Questions for electric toothbrush users
Are the batteries easy to replace? Explain.
How much are you willing to pay for the toothbrush?
Is it easy to hold onto? Explain.
Is the toothbrush aesthetically pleasing? Explain.
Is the product easy to use? Explain.
What do you think about the quality of the tooth brush? Explain.
What toothbrush do you use? Explain.
Amazon & Colgate Reviews
Battery Life Sucks:
It died with in two days; replaced the batteries, then it died a week later. What a waste! Other
than that it's a good basic toothbrush.
My 2.5 year old granddaughter was fascinated by my electric toothbrush so we bought one for
her. She loves the power action and has to be discouraged from using it on all surfaces in
addition to her teeth! Makes brushing much more fun. . .we've had to replace the batteries
already!
This is the third one of these we've had since Christmas (now March 4.) They keep breaking.
They just stop working. My kids love them, but they are not durable. My kids are 7 and 5. They
are not getting them really wet or anything that might ruin the batteries. too bad because they are
very cute.
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Head is Too Big:
There are better brushes from Oral-b electric brushes for the same price and though they doesn’t
say kids; their heads are smaller than this one.
I have trouble brushing the sides of my 5 year old's teeth because the brush head is so big. When
she brushes her teeth herself, she doesn't even try to brush there.
The biggest problem with this brush is that the head is simply too large. On small kids, it hurts
the cheeks whenever I brushed the side of the teeth. One thing that helped was asking the kid to
close the jaw when brushing the side. I don't know why they have to make it so large. The
bottom bristles are static (they don't move) and are useless. Maybe removing them can make the
head smaller. The Crayola doesn't have these useless bristles and does have a smaller head.
Heads Not Replaceable:
My 16 month old would not let me brush her teeth. She loves this, only problem is you can not
replace heads so you have to buy a new toothbrush instead of being able to replace heads.
On the plus side, the batteries are easily replaceable. But you will only do this two or three times,
then you'll have to throw the brush away since the brush head isn't replaceable.
4.3 Metric Table
Metric Number
Need Number
Metric
Importance
Units
1
1
Battery Life
5
hours
2
2, 11
Style
3
scale 1 to 10
3
3
Handle Diameter 5
mm
(millimeters)
4
4
Ease of Use
4
scale 1 to 10
5
5
Cost
3
$ (dollars)
6
6
Battery
Accessibility
4
scale 1 to 10
7
7
Noise
2
dB (decibels)
8
8,9
Bristle/Head
Size
3
mm
(millimeters)
9
10
Strength of
Materials
2
scale 1 to 10
10
12
Effectiveness
5
scale 1 to 10
7
11
13
Waterproof
4
IPX 1 to 8
(ingress
protection)
5.0 Revised Problem Statement
We decide to continue with our idea to make our redesigned toothbrush more energy efficient
and better suited for children. From customer reviews we concluded that battery life was a big
issue so we made our design a rechargeable toothbrush. In order to make the toothbrush more
user friendly for children, we added extra rubber gripping to prevent slipping. We removed the
stationary bristles and added a tongue cleaner to the back of the brush head in order to encourage
good oral hygiene habits in kids.
5.1 External Research
First, we used online web pages to find out patent research, customer needs, benchmarking
sources and general information about electric toothbrushes. These can be located in our
references section. This step is of great importance as it provided multiple sources of reference as
opposed to just having just one source.
5.2 Patent Research
In our patent research, we found patents that had detailed explanations and various technical
drawings of products and ideas already available in the market. We used this information to find
products with similar features and others that we could implement into our design.
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Brush Head For
Toothbrush
Application number: US
09/425,423
Publication date: Jun
10, 2003
Filing date:
Oct
22, 1999
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2
3
Method of Decorating
Integrated Tongue
cleaner
Application number: US
11/104,158
Publication date: Oct
13, 2009
Filing date:
Apr 12, 2005
Application number: US
13/116,251
Publication date: Jan
29, 2013
Filing date:
May 26, 2011
5.3 Product Archeology
In order to get a better understanding of how the
electric toothbrush came to be and to gather
information that may help us in our redesign, we
researched the history of the electric toothbrush. It was
several centuries ago when oral hygiene consisted of
cleaning the teeth with only stick, bones, feathers and
animal hairs. The modern nylon bristles so widely
used today was created in 1938. A company called
DuPont de Nemours introduced brushes with nylon
the first tooth bristles. Around 1939, Swiss scientist
invented the revolutionary idea of a electric
toothbrush. P.G Woog created their design fifteen
years later and the rights were purchased by Squibb,
the American oral hygiene company. The first electric
toothbrush introduced to U.S Consumers was called
the Broxodent. It used a attached cord that would plug into a power source. It was sometime later
that General Electric introduced a prototype which used a rechargeable battery. From then on,
rechargeable toothbrushes have become the norm. Oral-B is the current leading toothbrush
creator with a wide range of manual and electric toothbrushes that meet multiple consumer
needs. Technological advances have provided multiple features to toothbrushes today including,
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UV brush head sterilization, LCD screens, 2 minute auto timers, and pressure sensor alerts. All
of which have been engineered and designed to meet the consumer needs.
5.4 Benchmarking
For our benchmarking we decided to compare our original Dora the explorer toothbrush
to the other children’s toothbrushes other teams had. Compared to other team’s toothbrushes,
ours had below average battery life which is why we are redesigning around that initial problem.
i-Benchmarking Table
Feature
Oral-B Type
3744
Iron Man
Arm & Hammer
Spinbrush
Team 5,
unanimous
Ergonomics
4
2
3
2
Battery Life
(days)
85.0
31.0
74.0
295
Noise Level (dB) 70.4
71.0
71.4
60
Brush head size
Not given
Not given
Not given
Not given
Cost
$12.18
$12.50
$8.23
$9.00
Weight w/
batteries (g)
140. 7
83.7
112.5
N/A
Design creativity 2
2
3
N/A
Case removal
(battery)
easily removable
twist cap
very bottom,
inside case
at bottom,
standard
hidden, out of
the way
Durability
4
1
3
N/A
5.5 Global Issues
An important issue that our product will face in the product market is that fact that we
will have trouble marketing to third world countries and some developing countries since
electricity isn’t readily available in most of their households. They also are cultures where most
of the population isn’t concerned with oral hygiene as much as other things that are more
important to their daily lives. On top of that it may be that the nickelodeon character Dora may
not appeal to children in other countries or of different cultures.
5.6 Product Dissection
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When dissecting our product we started off with detachable pieces which was only the battery
cover and the two AAA energizer batteries the product came with. Then we began to remove
parts that required more effort such as the brush head that we got off using screwdriver. The
oscillating brush head and stationary bristles were removed and from there we could get a small
metal rod out that was holding the metal rod that made the brush oscillate in place. It was more
difficult to pull the motor and motor bracket out from the bottom of the toothbrush. After
removing the motor, it was still functional and operated when the batteries were connected. From
there we took of the rubber on and off switch which was molded straight to the plastic case. The
entire toothbrush case is all one plastic component.
i-Art-Function Matrix for Electric Toothbrush
Function
Art
Gears,
Cranks,
Pivotal
Motion
Oscillating
Brush head
Toothbrush
motor
Energy
storage
Charger
tongue
cleaner
gear, orbiting
members,
spurs
Lithium Ion
battery,
circuits
Electromagnet
ic fields,
lithium ion
cell batteries
tongue
scrapers,driv
e shaft, gears
US6536066
US 8418302
US5170525
US 6798169
US 8359693
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6.0 Target Specifications
This is the Target Specifications Table that emphasizes our Customer Needs through marginal
and ideal values. This helps us determine what components we want in our final toothbrush to
appeal to our target group.
Metric
No.
Need No.
Metric
Im
p
Units
Marginall
y
Acceptabl
e
Ideal
Value
1
1
Battery Life
5
hours
>53.6
56
2
2, 11
Style
3
scale 1 to
10
>6
8
3
3
Handle Diameter
5
mm
(millimeters
)
<28
25.5
4
4
Ease of Use
4
scale 1 to
10
>6
9
5
5
Cost
3
$ (dollars)
<$15
$8.99
6
6
Battery Accessibility
4
scale 1-10
>7
10
7
7
Noise
2
dB
(decibels)
<75
<70
8
8,9
Bristle Head/Size
3
mm
(millimeters
)
<15
13.5
9
10
Strength of Materials
2
scale 1 to
10
>5
10
10
12
Effectiveness
5
scale 1 to
10
>7
10
11
13
Waterproof
4
IPX 1 to 8
(ingress
protection)
>4
8
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7.0 Concept Generation
In these Concept Generation Webs, we portrayed the numerous ideas we came up with in
analyzing the consumer needs and feedback. These are our ideas to redesign the electric
toothbrush to become more appealing to the consumer in our target age group as well as the
parents purchasing them.
Type of Energy
Concept Web:
In this web, we have brainstormed how to make the toothbrush more energy efficient with goals
of keeping the costs relatively low. The battery life of the Dora Explorer toothbrush is short in
comparison to other top electric child toothbrushes. We included electrical and solar energy
sources as power, with varying options in the electrical field.
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Brushing Styles Concept Web:
The Brushing Styles Concept Web displays numerous ways in which the toothbrush would be
able to clean teeth. Through these different types of heads, all different consumers are able to
get the “right,” efficient pace they desire.
More Functions Concept Web:
The More Functions Web includes
additional functions that we have
generated through the consumer
feedback process. They are functions
that will make the overall toothbrush,
teeth cleaning experience more
enjoyable for the consumer (brusher)
while using the toothbrush.
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Morphological Chart:
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7.1 Reasons for Not Choosing Concepts
Some concepts simply did not make sense when matched with one another, for all sorts of
reasons. Whether it was the fact that the rechargeable battery and timer would have increased
the price too much, or solar powered for playing music. There were however, some concepts
that stuck and some concepts that formed together to create a new concept all together. Below in
Concept Screening you can see how different designs compare against each other.
8.0 Concept Selection
This table shows a list of selection criteria in which we based our new concepts off of. A minus
sign meant the new concept was worse than our original toothbrush, a 0 meant that the concept
was the same as our original toothbrush, and a plus sign meant that the concept was better than
our original concept. Each of these signs was placed in the various rows that matched up with the
selection criteria. The more pluses a concept received the better the concept is. The more
minuses a concept received the worse the concept is.
Concept Screening /Pugh Table
Selection Criteria
Design 1 Butterfly
grips
Design
2
Tongue
cleaner
Design3
Oscillat
ing
head
(bristles
remove
d)
Design
4 Try
me
cover
Design
5 backpackagi
ng
Design
6
Rechar
geable
battery
base
Ergonomics
+
+
+
+
0
+
Battery Life
0
-
-
0
0
+
Noise level
0
+
0
0
0
0
Brush head size
0
-
+
0
0
0
cost
-
-
+
-
0
-
16
weight
-
-
+
0
0
-
Design Creativity
+
+
+
+
+
+
Case removal
(battery)
0
0
0
0
0
+
durability
+
0
+
0
0
+
Sum +’s
+3
+3
+6
+2
+1
+5
Sum 0’s
4
2
2
6
8
2
Sum -’s
-2
-4
-1
-1
0
-2
Net Score
+1
-1
+5
+1
+1
+3
Rank
3
4
1
3
3
2
Continue ?
Yes
Yes
Yes
Combin Combin Yes
e
e
ii-Concept Selection Matrix Table
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9.0 Final Specifications Table
Feature
Metric
Previous
Specifications
New Specifications
Battery Life
Hours
53.6
56
Style
Scale 1 to 10
6
8
Handle Diameter
mm
28mm
25.5mm
Ease of Use
scale 1 to 10
6
9
Cost
$ (dollars)
$ 5.00
$ 8.99
Noise
dB (decibels)
73.59 dB
70 dB
Bristle Length
mm
9mm
6.5mm
Head Width
mm
15mm
13.5mm
Effectiveness
scale 1 to 10
7
10
Our purpose is to redesign our electric toothbrush to appeal to a range of children needs and
wants. The final toothbrush has a rubber button with an off/on option. To protect the toothbrush
against water entry and have a noise reducing effect a thin rubber is placed inside. The brush has
a single rotating brush head with two opposing circle brush heads. Also, the brush head has a
tongue cleaner. The blue section its shows it’s worn out. It is designed to optimize cleaning
potential, ease of use, and customer satisfaction.
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9.1 Design Drawings
Design #1
Grips in the shape of butterflies were added. This helps younger children grip onto the brush
easier and also satisfying their creativity with the butterflies. The designs help them enjoy
brushing their teeth more.
Design #2
To this design, we added a tongue cleaning brush. This helps clean bacteria from your tongue
and also makes brushing more fun for kids. Mainly this focuses on better hygiene for children.
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Design #3
For this design, we took away the stationary brushes on the brush heads. This is mainly to make
the brushing more comfortable for children. The excess brushes may hurt a child’s mouth, in
which they have smaller teeth and do not need as many bristles.
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Packaging Design
To the package, we added a try me button to help children and their guardians decide whether the
brush is right for them. Also on the back, we added directions of how to change batteries in the
mechanism. We researched this and found that this is a frequent problem occurring and should
be addressed.
9.2 List of Parts
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9.3 Assembly of the New Brush
The new additions of the brush are very simply and cost efficiently added to the toothbrush.
The rubber butterfly grips are added by adhesive to the sides of the toothbrush. A tongue cleaner
is applied the same way. However, the head is changed internally simply by a twist of the
shaft,in which it is popped out and changed. These additions make the mechanism easier to use
and more consumer friendly.
10.0 Embodiment Design
For the Embodiment Design and Final Design, we incorporated all three of our design together
without sacrificing any efficiency. A tongue cleaning brush was added to the back of the brush
head for a more efficient clean of the mouth. We also decided to discard the stationary bristles
because they are somewhat unnecessary. Also for added grip, we added grips on the side to help
children hold the brush more easily. This is the ideal and final design for our toothbrush
redesign.
Customer
Aspects /
Technical
Aspects
Importance
Ease of use
5
Ergonomic
5
Functional
4
Style
3
Size
3
Bristles
Brush
Head
Battery
Holder
Grip
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
Button
O
O
O
O
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11.0 Conclusions
Throughout this process of engineering a toothbrush, we dissected, benchmarked and redesigned.
We believe that our final product will satisfy the consumer better than the prototype. By the
addition of grips that satisfy children, the tongue brush cleaning feature, and the single rotating
brush head, the design should satisfy all parties targeted for consumption. While brushing their
teeth, the consumer will have a more effective and satisfactory time. This finished product will
satisfy all consumer needs and wants!
References
"Colgate Dora The Explorer Power Toothbrush." ExpoTV. N.p., 29 Dec. 2007. Web. 19 Oct.
2013.
"Customer Reviews Colgate Powered Toothbrush, Dora the Explorer." Amazon. N.p., 20112013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
“Evolution of the Toothbrush." Gargles. WordPress, 6 Aug. 2007. Web. 19 Oct. 2013.
"The History of the Electric Toothbrush." CosmicSmile.com. N.p., 10 Aug. 2011. Web. 20 Oct.
2013.