Monroe Chabrier
Hitch Hider
The Idea
For my major's capstone project, my team and I built a unique way to safely store valuables inside of a trailer hitch. The Hitch Hider uses a combo-locking pin allowing users to open the lock box without having to carry keys.
We also wanted to build something that is visually appealing, disguises that it is a lock box, and something that we could customize for customers (logos, schools, teams, etc).
As surfers, we were bothered with having to hide keys while surfing or somehow carry them with us. We later realized that many activities (concerts, hunting, running, watersports, etc) also have the need of hiding car keys.
We were able to make the units for $8 each + $11 for the locking pin. We sold them for $35 since they were mostly sold to friends and family. As a company we invested $2000 and had $3800 revenue.
The Class
​
In Cal Poly's Industrial Technology program, every course leads up to a student's Capstone IT 407 project (this project). Students team up in groups of 10 and have 10 weeks to ideate/iterate an innovative product, invest their own money to buy raw materials from suppliers, produce 100 units, create packaging, and market & sell them all.
​
The class was broken up into 5 stages, each had to be finished before moving to the next. The most important stage being the production walk-through where for each step of production, the professor would choose someone at random from the team to execute the step exactly as we had planned it in our work instructions.
​
At the end of the class, we hosted a few showcases around San Luis Obispo where all 5 teams sold their products and had judges review their products, processes, packaging, and marketing. We Won!!
My Role
​
Once we were grouped up into teams, each member chose 1 or 2 of the designated roles. I chose to be the Personnel Manager (in charge of managing conflicts and people's schedules) and the Product Development Manager (in charge of ideation, customer interviews, product iterations, and prototyping).
​
Within the first week, we realized some roles were only important during certain stages and so we all found other ways to add value where we felt we could. In addition to my other roles, I became in charge of all of paperwork (see binder of all of our work) including work instructions, marketing material, and reports for all 5 stages.
​
My other role was with our Sales and Marketing team. We designed our logo, built our customer facing website, managed our Facebook page with ~200 followers, filmed and edited our few videos, and I negotiated a bulk sale to the Cal Poly Student Store at half their minimum margins (1st in school history).
​
During our 3 weeks of production, every team member focused their efforts on finishing our 130 units. When in production, I mostly worked on the drill press, the manual mill, the iron worker, and quality checking/deburring.
Lastly, I was the team pitchman: I created our presentation slides and pitched our idea/work to customers and the judges during our 3 showcases.
​
​
