Edward
"The whole experience has been great; it's a long-term thing - a business that will keep on growing."
"I've loved doing technology, and working with clients is great, it lets me tap in to my innovative side. Rather than reading out of a text book I'm picking up knowledge, experiencing new things and having fun. I can use all this later in life, it's a great path to glorious things."
Being the school's rowing captain, Edward was inspired to do a project based on rowing. Wellington College rowers are affiliated with Star Boating Club so he approached the committee and asked them if they could identify any problems around the club.
Edward met with several key staff at the club and brainstormed a variety of potential needs and opportunities. These included storage, the difficulty of getting boats down from racking and securing spanners. When loading and unloading the boats (rigging and de-rigging), each rower needs two different-sized spanners. However spanners are constantly being mislaid which slows the process down when people have to share tools. There are no spanners in the boats so if a boat is damaged or the rigging loose when a team is on the water there is also a lot of time wasted in getting spanners to fix the problem.
Edward decided the solution would be to have a fixed spanner holder in each boat. He took this idea to his group in the Business Studies class and they set up a business - Innovative Rowing Equipment - with the spanner holder as the main product.
Edward started with concept drawings in which he worked on various types of holders ranging from the use of clips, to fixing it in the boat, to pouches. He decided that clipping the holders in would involve too much handling and that pouches could be dropped overboard, so he concentrated on fixed holders.
Having decided on some form of fixed plastic holding device as the solution, he next had to consider how to attach it. The holder would have to be fastened to the side or bottom of the boat, either temporarily with something like Velcro (enabling removal) or permanently, using an industrial double-sided tape that was already in use in the cox box.
The next stage involved using foam moulds so that the full design scale could be seen. Edward came up with different types of designs, working through the various problems. For example, he needed to increase the gap size in the middle to make it easier to move the spanners in and out. However, if the spanners weren't packed tightly enough they would rattle around. Edward made ten different foam moulds as he worked on perfecting his design.
After two unsuccessful attempts at making models of his ideas, Edward persevered and was successful with his third. He did about 20 computer-aided designs (CADs) and full CAD drawings with the complete dimensions of the device, which would save the company about $8,000 when he moved on to the injection moulding process.
From the CAD design Edward went on to making wooden moulds of the holder. He tried clay but this wouldn't give a perfect mould. When he tried wood he found he had to use hard wood to make a perfect mould, but this took quite a long time because of the small tools he had to use.
After sanding the model he went on to the vacuum-forming step, where plastic resin was poured inside the mould. The first test resulted in the mould buckling with the heat of the plastic reaction. The process was mastered and, in later prototypes, Edward experimented with the insertion of magnetsto prevent the spanners from moving around. At this point, Innovative Rowing Equipment received outside investment of approximately $12,000. This enabled them to order 1,000 injection moulded units from a Hutt Valley firm, a contact organised with the help of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme.
Edward had already received orders and decided to make 20 solutions in-house but the plaster moulds he had made from the resin master hadn't been succesful and he knew that he didn't have time to get the design right and produce holders for sale on time.
Edward reports that the business is hoping to get endorsement from rower George Bridgewater, so they can take their product to the New Zealand Rowing Institute who might have it on their boats. They are doing this through Kerr Boats, which supplies the Institute, so are hoping that if they get a contract with them there will be a spanner holder in every boat.
While Edward didn't get much feedback from the Star Boating Club, he received comments from other stakeholders such as his business partners and other club rowers. He says it was good to get any negative feedback as this meant he could change things and keep working until it was as perfect as it could be.
Edward plans to have a gap year in the UK and then do industrial design, or something similar, at university.
