Toothbrush holder

Understand and Define

How might people store their toothbrushes, in an easy and hygienic way?

-Leaving toothbrushes on top of a sink or lying flat in a medicine cabinet can lead to mold.

-Putting toothbrushes in mugs leads to contact between germ-ridden toothbrushes.

My solution is a toothbrush/toothpaste holder. It would need to:

-keep the brush head off the ground.

-not allow contact between brush-heads.

-be able to be put against walls

For it to be successful, it would also need to:

-be easy to put toothbrushes into and take out of.

-reliably hold toothbrushes.

-also hold toothpaste, and have the toothpaste holding portion have all the above qualities.

-should be able to hold at least 4 toothbrushes, and a tube of toothpaste.

-should be somewhat visually appealing.

It would be used primarily by family's of 4, or 5. And i imagine it would be sold by Colgate or other toothbrush company along with non-electric toothbrushes, since electric often have a holder of their own.

Ideate:

product ideas:

-individual toothbrush holders

-large pockets for toothbrushes

-Holder for just toothbrush heads (for electric toothbrushes with detachable heads)

-Camping (for individual campers or groups of campers)

Feature and trait ideas:

-not wall-mounted

-wall-mounted

-upside down design for better drying

-Germaphobic material

-built-in timer or hourglass for correct tooth-brushing lengths.

-Half-circular design

Im gonna go with making a toothbrush holder with deep pockets for the toothbrush to go in. For features and traits, it'll go on the sink, be in a group of 5, be in a half-circular design so that it can go against a wall, and have a spot for an hourglass on the front.

-prototype

The feedback I got was mostly along the lines of "make sure that the tubes are all big enough to serve their purpose". And I did lots of research on toothbrush and toothpaste length, thankfully, because in the process of 3D modeling it I realized it needed to be a whole lot bigger. Here are pictures of the sketch, as well as the 3D printed prototype.

-test

For this stage I literally just brought it home and actually used it. It worked great! The toothbrushes and toothpaste fit in as they should. However, one of the tubes broke off in my backpack, and i had to superglue it back on. This speaks to a larger problem, the tubes easily break off. I solved this by having large, circular bases for the toothbrush tubes, and rectangular blocks connecting them to the central Toothpaste tube. I also increased the size of the timer slot because it was way to small. Also, gunk and moisture would gather at the bottom of the tubes, unless I added ventilation/drainage, so I did.

-Make

-Share

I got positive responses from all who I shared with. The only things about it were that it might be inconvenient to take the toothbrushes out. And that the ventilation might not be an effective solution. I would refine it further only after its used for a longish period of time in the proper context, then I would take feedback from that and use it to refine it further.

As with most challenges the most physically difficult stage was make, since it required the most effort. But I found the ideate stage to be more difficult than I anticipated. I'm not sure why, but maybe the problem of toothbrush/paste holding is less simple than first anticipated.

In the end my project achieved all objectives. It is a simple and elegant way of keeping toothbrush heads away from each other, and the final product is structurally sound and somewhat pleasant to look at.

As for how I worked, I thought I was quite focused and productive. I took everything step by step as laid out, and I finished pretty much on time. 10/10 productivity.