PROJECT Background:

A manufacturing company has hired the marketing firm that you work for to help them market a warehouse full of shiny “spheres.”  Your boss has guaranteed the CEO of the company that his marketing firm can design an advertising campaign and product to sell all of these spheres.  The company needs more space in their warehouse as soon as possible.

Your boss has given the marketing/design/advertising team that you are a member of 2 weeks (3 weekends) to design a container for sets of  7 “spheres”- all the same size.  However, each team may only have one in their possession at any time.  There should not be much wasted space in the container since efficiency of the container is important.  Resources and cost need to be realistic and minimized if possible.

CONTAINER:

Your team needs to make the container in a very attractive and creative way to entice a customer into noticing it and eventually buying the product.  The container cannot be rectangular, square box (prism), individual spheres or a cylindrical tube (they roll off the shelves easily).  One container must contain all seven spheres at the same time.   If your container has multiple levels of spheres (instead of  the spheres being all tangent to one plane) you can earn some extra design points.   The materials that you use to create the container are to be chosen by your marketing team.  If you plan to add something to the original “spheres” for marketing purposes (like donuts in the spheres, in the shape above, or dog bones in the spheres, for the product at the right), it is very important to justify any additional expense that the container or additions may create – such as why the additional product will increase sales.

PROPOSAL:

When the container is complete, your team is to include a proposal to the boss and to other marketing teams to convince them that your container is the best for the product in terms of 1) package efficiency (calculated by finding the ratio of the volumes of the 7 spheres to the volume of the container); 2) geometry to show how the efficiency was calculated; 3) geometry used to construct the container; 4) justification of any additional expense that you are expecting either the manufacturer or your firm to incur - make sure to include the cost of your container and any add-ons; 5) the proposed selling price of each container of product with the profit (markup divided by cost); and 6) why your design should be chosen - why it should do well in the market (a survey of prospective customers may be helpful here!).  The boss expects proper English and complete sentences along with neat and detailed drawings and graphs in your proposal.  It needs to be typed or word-processed before it is submitted with your finished product. 

COMMERCIAL:

In addition to the container and the written proposal, your team is to create and perform a 60 second videotaped television commercial for your product to encourage sales.  The commercial must include some geometry to get full credit and be considered in the “BEST” category by your boss.  (If your group needs access to a video camera, see your boss to make arrangements to use one!)

PROPOSAL:

The boss is going to choose the best design for production, and a bonus (10 extra points) is awaiting members of the team whose design is chosen as the best in each shift (2^nd,  3^rd , 4^th , and 5^th ).

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[Student Containers][Student Commercials]
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