Why the State of the Art Was Inadequate
Here we go!
“The current purchasing options are inadequate. There are no large-scale options for academic institutions and companies, only purchasing options at the retail level. The refills cost about as much as a traditional marker. An Expo is about $0.41 per marker (bulk purchase of 48 or more) while an EcoSmart is about $0.47 per marker when ordering a marker kit with ink and $0.40 per marker when ordering just the ink. The Pilot and Writeyboard are refillable cartridge options with an initial investment of about $1.90, and refills costing $1.00 per charge. These numbers assume that all markers last equally long on one charge. The refillables are made with recycled material, but are not themselves recyclable, which means that the materials are only used twice before going to a landfill.
There are refillable markers, but the market penetration of the ink refills is so low that refillable markers are much less convenient than disposable markers. Market research conducted by the team of ten local retailers of common goods and of art supplies indicated that ink refills for a current refillable marker were not available:
Using the Expo Low Odor dry-erase marker as the standard, a dry, consumed nib weighs around 0.74 g, depending on the amount of solute from the ink remaining in the nib. The consumed FIR weighs around 2.93 g. The entire, consumed Expo dry-erase marker weighs around 13 grams. This means that a user disposes the dry-erase marker when only 28% (by weight) of the entire marker system is rendered unusable. That means that 72% of the marker is still viable when it is thrown away. Does one dispose of a car when out of fuel? Does one dispose of a car when the exhaust gets smashed, and the engine no longer runs? On the other hand, does one repair or replace the damaged components to make the car functional again.
Markers that are refillable are somewhat difficult to refill and the refill process is open to error, which can result in damages and stains to consumer property. These factors are a disincentive for refilling.
Some markers have a tendency to leak and bleed, especially on airplanes. This is unacceptable.
To get the most value out of our limited resources, we will limit our scope for the duration of this project to designing a refillable, modular, dry-erase marker with the intent of a future commercial model being manufactured with recycled and recyclable materials. Modularity refers to a device which consists of multiple modules, each of which performs a given core function and is capable of being changed out with a different type of module which performs the same core function and sometimes an auxiliary function or functions. The ReMarkerable team is committed to doing whatever else is necessary to support that mission and make a solid foundation for building on what we do over the course of the project.
Minimum viable product prototype consisting of a dry-erase marker which is better than the competition as determined through our scoring system. The concept of this rubric and scoring system occurred in mid-February, 2017, and was codified and written in Michael Ganzer’s Laboratory notebook on 22 Feb 2017.
This was the start of a new adventure for all of us!
Bob
Ganzer, M., Lindquist, B., and Pederson R. (2017). Executive Summary and Introduction, Remarkable Final Design Report. Unpublished bachelors’ dissertation. Minnesota State University Mankato, Mankato, MN.
Hashtags: State of the Art, dry-erase, landfill, re-fillable, Environmental Sustainability, cost-effective, Unacceptable
Quote: “How much work goes into developing a disposable product?”
-- Larry Blackstad, Team ReMarkerable Mentor