Wade Sun the inventor of the Disc Eraser TM continues to share the lessons he learned as he went through the process of developing his invention, (Copyright 2006 SunZag Creative Products. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from the author):
“The next step: designing my product/final prototype. When you design a product, you need to weigh the factors of material cost vs. functionality vs. size vs. safety vs. appearance, among many other things. To beat out the shredders and the hand-held CD scraping devices, I wanted my device to be compact, portable, and small enough to fit inside my pocket. Smaller is better, for inventory and shipping purposes, and being compact and lightweight is a definite plus. Looking at my first prototype, I determined that I could make my final prototype even smaller without compromising the stability. For added safety, instead of a retractable blade design, I thought about making a hinged base plate that opened in similar fashion as the paper trimmer, with the CD alignment stubs on the inside surface. In terms of engineering and manufacturing, a retractable blade would complicate my product’s development as well as increase production costs.
RULE #8 KEEP YOUR DESIGNS SIMPLE. I reasoned that the blade did not protrude out much from the slider because the distance from the CD surface would be very close. Besides, with my hinged plate design, the blade would not be exposed during operation. So there would be no need for a retractable blade mechanism.
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