Madesmart Expanding Bath Tray
Origin
My colleague, Reem Emerson (a lead product designer at Madesmart) designed an attractive plastic bath shelf.
Challenges
Reem's design was great but she wanted a number of aspects of the design to be improved.
Her model had no mechanical connections. The parts were simply hovering in space. I needed to design the sliding connections.
The design was not strong enough. I needed to increase the strength considerably without disrupting the beautiful look of her design.
Solutions
I tweaked the structure to emphasize vertical surfaces. These functioned as load-bearing ribs, adding considerable strength to each component.
I made the sliding surfaces at six points on each wing, dividing the forces evenly between them. I concealed these load bearing structures under the lip and feet.
To allow for easy assembly, and inexpensive manufacture, I closed off the wing slots with snap clips with permanent snap features.
The polypropylene product proved capable of holding 10 pounds indefinitely at maximum extension.
My contributions
Collaborated with Reem on the concept.
Prototyping
Final CAD models for all parts
Engineering responsibility on all parts
Worked with Chinese manufacturers to make sure all parts were manufacturable and functioned correctly.
Packaging layout and die line
Results
The expanding bath tray was picked up by several retailers, and continues to be sold today. On Amazon it has a 4.4/5 star rating among customer reviews. In fact, it’s so popular that at least two other companies have copied it! (Flattering, if not ideal.)
In better news, it was also an IHA Global Innovation Award finalist for 2016!
