Preparing for Tool-up – Gabriela O.

This week has been very busy, as Amanda has said we have chosen a design! This is exciting, only because after all of our hard work through the memorandum, and trying to create a product that is safe, efficient and affordable, we are done trying to imagine or future product. In the next process we must compare different types of products, prices, and brands for the materials used in our breast pump. This task was somewhat difficult because I wanted to get the cheapest price available for us. We only had $80 to spend, and it needed to be spent wisely. Our teachers had given us a list of vendors that are ‘tax free’ which would be able to save us some money. However, throughout these websites I realized that our materials were not sold through these vendors. The only thing that I could buy from these vendors was the baby bottles. So I had to look elsewhere, but I needed to recognize that there would be tax on these products, and the shipping would not be free. The first place I went, was Amazon. Amazon is so great only because it offers almost everything, and you can buy one product in a big bulk. I was able to purchase the tubing, gun holster and other products. And at amazon if you spent $35 or more, you were able to get free shipping, and I spent more then $35, giving me free shipping, but also stayed under the group budget. Which was an accomplishment.

After all of the researching, I had to fill out a order form, in order to get the product ordered from the school. On the order form we had to fill out, where the product is sold, price, sales tax (if any), shipping cost (if any), and why the product was needed. I really felt that this was easier, then actually ordering the product ourselves, because by doing this we wouldn’t be at fault for any mistakes made while ordering. The goal is to have our products after thanksgiving break, so that our prototype is complete before the end of the first semester. The only thing that our group is nervous about is if the product we imagined, and the tools we bought, somehow isn’t a sell-able product.  However, we are super excited to be creating something that we know has potential to be amazing!