Survey results
Sample size: 29 people
1) How old are you?
- 93.1% → 15-18 years old
- 6.9% → 19-25 years old
2) How often do you use a backpack?
- 75.8% → Everyday
- 10.3% → Often
- 10.3% → About 4 times a week
- 3.6% → Never
3) Do your devices (phone, airpods, …) often run out of power when you are not at home?
- 41.4% → Yes
- 37.9% → No
- 20.7% → Sometimes
4) On a hot day, how much more do you sweat on your back (while wearing a backpack) compared to the rest of your body?
- 34.6% → A little more
- 46.2% → Moderately more
- 19.2% → A lot more
5) Did your backpack/bag ever get stolen? Did anybody ever steal something from inside your backpack/bag?
- 79.3% → No
- 20.7% → Yes
Post It brainstorming
Survey question 3 solutions: Battery in backpack
Survey question 4 solutions: Fan to cool back, Hole in the back of the backpack, cold liquid, ice, cooling “plates”
Survey question 5 solutions: Alarm in backpack, lock to open backpack, material that you can’t cut with a knife, tracking device in backpack, rope connected to your hand
Top solutions
Question 3: Battery in backpack
Question 4: Cooling plates
Question 5: Alarm, lock, tracking device, material that you can’t cut
Battery in backpack can charge devices like phones when they run out of power
Since most of the people in the survey said that their devices often run out of power when they are not at home, this problem has to be addressed. The most obvious and easiest solution is to include a battery in the backpack. This battery would be built into the backpack, but it could be removed if you would need to charge it. It would be charged by solar panels on top of the backpack or by taking it out and charging it with a charging cord. The battery would be small enough to not take up too much space in the backpack.
Cooling plates would cool down your back on a hot day
Cooling plates built into the backpads of the backpack would cool down your back on a hot day. This prevents your back and your whole body from sweating too much. This device would be powered by solar plates on top of your backpack or by the battery mentioned in the previous paragraph. Since it is almost always sunny on a hot day, and the UV index is usually high too, it would mostly be powered by the solar panels.
Alarm in the backpack, lock at zippers, tracking device in the backpack, and the backpack being made out of material that you can’t cut would prevent thiefes from stealing your backpack or stealing something from inside your backpack
With this problem, there are many solutions. The first solution would be an alarm that could go off in one of two ways: Either the lock gets opened by force, or you could activate the alarm from your phone. If someone steals your backpack, you could just activate the alarm from your phone and people around him, maybe police officers, know that the thief just stole a backpack and could intervent. Another thing would be a lock at the zippers of the backpack, which could be opened by a code or just by fingerprint, which would make it comfortable to open. This would prevent thieves from opening your backpack and stealing stuff while you are not looking. Another safety measure would be to make the backpack out of a material that is robust and cannot be cut by a knife. When a thief can’t open the zippers, he will obviously try to cut the material, but by making the material robust the thief has no chance of opening the backpack. This would make the backpack inaccessible to others. The last security measure that could be incorporated would be a small tracking device built into the backpack, that couldn’t be removed easily. It is also small, so you can hardly see it. With this device, you could always track your backpack after it gets stolen, kind of like having your wallet stolen but having an airtag in it, so you could still get your backpack back after it gets stolen.