About Us
We are a student-led company called No-Knots. As students that use technology a lot in class, we noticed that whenever you take your earbuds out of your pocket they are tangled and it becomes really annoying and time consuming to untangle them. To solve this problem we created No-Knots. NoKnots is made from a durable plastic that allows you to wrap your earbuds around it so they become untangled when you put them into your pocket. We found it to be so useful we decided to make a company and share our idea to our community.
Our Team!
Our Charity, "Sick-Kids"
Sick Kids is a hospital for sick children/kids with many health issues. Many of our classmates have been helped by this wonderful hospital. Sick Kids is a children's hospital and teaching facility located at University Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The money that we earn will go to Sick Kids hospital. We are specifically donating to the new Sick-Kids building to help them in the development of a 21st century hospital that will promote advanced technology and research to help kids not only in Canada but from around the world.
Our journey
One day our class was looking at everyday problems on the internet. We found a lot of problems but none of them were really important (i.e straw falling into the juice bottle). The first problem that we came up with was our clothes getting wet during the winter. We thought of this since it was winter at the time and many people in our class had the problem of wet clothing because of the snow melting. We looked online for some formulas that would make your clothes waterproof and we found one. Our teacher bought all the materials but we noticed one problem, we couldn’t find the measurements so we experimented with different ratios of each material. The next day, we saw that the formula didn’t work because it had a smell, it discoloured the fabric, and some of it didn’t dry properly.
Then, our class had a vote to see if we should look for more formulas or if we should find a different problem and our class voted that we should find a different problem. After about 2-3 days of searching on the internet, we came up with 3 different problems; ice cream dripping of the cone, charger cords breaking and earbuds getting tangled. Our class voted that tangled earbuds was the best problem because we have all had our earbuds tangled before. Our class knew right away that this was a problem that needed to be solved.
Then, our class had a vote to see if we should look for more formulas or if we should find a different problem and our class voted that we should find a different problem. After about 2-3 days of searching on the internet, we came up with 3 different problems; ice cream dripping of the cone, charger cords breaking and earbuds getting tangled. Our class voted that tangled earbuds was the best problem because we have all had our earbuds tangled before. Our class knew right away that this was a problem that needed to be solved.
Our First Design
The first design was a circular disk that had three holes, it was made out of plastic and could attach to your phone through the headphone jack. The problem with that design was that someone already made it. If our company were to also make this product we would be in trouble because we would then be breaking patent law.
The second design was a piece that looks like a lot like our product but it was elongated at the bottom. It had two holes, in the holes you would wrap the end of the earbud around the middle. Our company did not really like it and we thought we could expand on it. Also the mold did not fit with the product The third design was two small circles the size of a melting bead, one big circle that would be in the middle and the small circles and the big circle would be made out of plastic. The problem with this design was that the mold did not fit with the size well Our Final design was our product now NoKnots a product that keeps your earbuds from getting tangled.
We came up with this design because it is sort of like a skinnier version of our other design. We had to make many different molds. Eventually the rubber molds wearied out and they fell apart. To solve this problem we had to buy new rubber. The Process of Manufacturing:
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For the first day of production, the manufacturing division needed to make 40 products but, they didn’t have enough molds to make all of them but they successfully made approximately 30 products. Our teacher also went out to buy other materials for the manufacturing of the product and the packaging (i.e spray paint, sandpaper, sticker sheets, plastic bags etc.). Since we were about to start the pop - up store, our teacher decided to step in and help the manufacturing make more molds but we were running out of the rubber compound that created the molds. In the end, we managed to make all of our molds out of the little amount of rubber we had before we started the pop-up shop.
On our first day of sales, we made around $25 from the pop-up shop and the pre-order forms. Afterwards, our sales were increasing so the manufacturing had to start making 70 - 80 products per day. Our product was getting really popular around our school but we were running out of products to sell because at the time, the weather outside was very cold and wet therefore, we couldn’t produce any product since there would be a chance that the chemicals in the liquid plastic wouldn’t react properly.
Again, our teacher stepped in and helped us out by making, sanding and spray painting the product during his free time at home; both after school and during the weekends. In school, the manufacturing would be packaging the product and fulfilling orders. After that, the weather started getting better, and we could start making the product at school now.
Problems:
During the second week, a couple of problems started to occur in the sales and manufacturing divisions of the company. Our teacher had told us that the molds had started to fall apart so, he went out and bought more liquid rubber to create more molds. We also had a day where everyone was helping the manufacturing sand the products since we needed products to sell. Also, during the second week, the sales started to decrease, so the CEO’s of the company, sales, manufacturing and accounting divisions agreed on introducing a new colour, which is blue. We also ran into a problem which was we were running out of white NoKnots and we need more products sanded because we need to spray paint the products black and blue. Currently, we have 6 molds and many of the divisions are helping the manufacturing sand and produce more products since we need more white and we have a new colour; blue.
During the second week, a couple of problems started to occur in the sales and manufacturing divisions of the company. Our teacher had told us that the molds had started to fall apart so, he went out and bought more liquid rubber to create more molds. We also had a day where everyone was helping the manufacturing sand the products since we needed products to sell. Also, during the second week, the sales started to decrease, so the CEO’s of the company, sales, manufacturing and accounting divisions agreed on introducing a new colour, which is blue. We also ran into a problem which was we were running out of white NoKnots and we need more products sanded because we need to spray paint the products black and blue. Currently, we have 6 molds and many of the divisions are helping the manufacturing sand and produce more products since we need more white and we have a new colour; blue.