Before we could start making a new product in Kenya, we did a lot of work and research in Delft. Not irrelevant, we had to figure out what kind of product we wanted to design and produce. First we looked at the market the products are sold on and which kind of people would buy such products. After looking at these aspects we came up with many ideas. Unfortunately only one of them could be produced, so we had to make a decision. Out of the many ideas 3 were considered thoroughly for the final product. Questions were asked such as; Could the product be produced using the injection moulding technique that is used in the factory? What will the cost price of the new product approximately be? What is a realistic price to sell the product for? Would people actually buy this product? It is worth noting that the product will be sold on an open air market.
The three ideas we chose are a stool, lego blocks and an acoustic amplifier for your mobile phone. After asking these questions and doing more research the acoustic amplifier was chosen as our final product. This idea was chosen because of several reasons. First of all many Kenyans own a mobile phone and use it to listen to music. Next to this is the electricity in his region not a thing that can be trusted, that is why we made the amplifier without any electrical parts. And lastly, it will be waterproof and dustproof. After doing some sketching, a model of the product was made in SolidWorks. This program is also used by Mukanda to make the moulds. We are very curious about what Wilson has to say about our design! In the next update you will read more about this and about the tough negotiation we had with Mukada about the production costs of this mould.
