Dan Spangler鈥檚 doggie day care and boarding business found itself in some deep 鈥� trouble last year.
An inspector cited the New Bern, N.C., entrepreneur and dog lover for having a rusty pooper scooper, a violation under state Department of Agriculture guidelines. It frustrated Spangler, who spent countless hours maintaining the metal scoopers and hundreds of dollars replacing them year after year.
He started thinking about everything else that bugged him about available dog waste removers. The way the springy tines on the rake bounced stray bits back onto his shoes. The way any blast of water hard enough to clean the equipment also soaked everything around it. The way his wrist hurt after picking up and dumping easily 30-50 pounds of poop every day.
After hearing about Vanderbilt University鈥檚 The Wond鈥檙y entrepreneurship center and makerspace, Spangler decided to see if anyone there could help. Director of Making Kevin Galloway and his students could 鈥� and did. On March 14, they unveiled the scooper of the future, which they鈥檙e seeking to patent and commercialize for dog shelters, boarding businesses and families that just have a lot of dogs.
鈥淚f I hadn鈥檛 reached out to The Wond鈥檙y, this would still be a drawing on a napkin,鈥� Spangler said. 鈥淢aybe not even that.鈥�
Galloway鈥檚 class is How to Make (Almost) Anything, and students majoring in a variety of disciplines flock to it. Two sophomore engineering students on the project attended last week鈥檚 unveiling, Spencer Ray, a mechanical engineering major, and Caitlin Allison, an electrical engineering major.
Ray said he handled the design and 3D printing of new parts and was most excited by the two-sided rake 鈥� forked for solid waste and flat for soft. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know how we were going to do it at first, but we used a foamcore prototype and then went on to metal,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 was glad to be assigned to this because, earlier in life, my father and I joked that there had to be a better way.鈥�
Allison said it stretched her engineering skills to help prototype and test iterations of the scooper, rather than apply her electrical engineering knowledge to some high-tech device.
鈥淚t was especially helpful to work with an actual client, because that鈥檚 what we鈥檒l be doing after we graduate,鈥� Allison said. 鈥淭his wasn鈥檛 just an assignment. We had someone there who could either say, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 great,鈥� or 鈥楾hat won鈥檛 work, and here鈥檚 why.鈥欌��
In the end, the team ended up with the firm, two-sided rake that stands up without support plus a plastic, dustpan-style device with an ergonomic handle and a built-in hose connection and spraying system with no splash-back.
Sure, it鈥檚 funny to work on a pooper scooper, said Galloway, but the device doesn鈥檛 matter. It鈥檚 helping students solve real-world problems such as Spangler鈥檚, which could have cost him his business license.
鈥淲herever students go in their careers, they鈥檙e going to take on projects where they don鈥檛 have expertise and will have to rely on and collaborate with others,鈥� Galloway said. 鈥淚f you trust the process, you鈥檒l find something that works.鈥�