Building Equipment: Sewing needles, scissors, ruler
Our build time was around 45 minutes at the start, but as we get better at sewing, this build time will continue to decrease.
Some in build refinements we had were making the size of the napkin bigger, and adding the silverware holding pocket to the middle. At first, the napkin was only 9x9 inches, but this was too small compared to a typical restaurant napkin. The silverware also kept on falling out of our first prototype, so we had to add the pocket.
We would like to thank Mrs. Quisgard for lending us the cloth and sewing material, and Mrs. Sarah Roth for meeting with us and trouble shooting some of the production problems we faced
Buying solid cloth that is nice enough for a restaurant will cost $5 per square yard, but all materials will be much cheaper when buying them in bulk. For our very small scale production, it will cost roughly $3 per napkin. In mass production, slap bracelets are sold at $10 for a 200 pack. In this scale of production, the SlapNap can cost less than a dollar. In our prototype, we didn't have to pay for cloth or string since we used borrowed materials, but in the future we will have to buy string. A whole spool of white string costs $8 and is 656 ft long. This only adds a few cents to the price per napkin.
Building Process
1. Cut a piece of cloth 11.5x8.5 inches. 2.Next we need to mark the side pockets for the slap bracelets. The pockets will just be from folding over the edges of the cloth and sewing it down. Our pockets were 3.5-4 cm. We marked our cloth with a white colored pencil. 2. After marking the pocket, sew the cloth over itself on opposite edges of the napkin, and leave one end of the pocket open. The sewing needs to have thinly spaced stitching or the pocket won’t be tight. fold over the line that you marked in the previous step. 3. Cut another piece of cloth to be 3x5 inches 4. Sew this cloth perpendicular, and one inch away from one of the slap bracelets. This pocket is to hold the silverware tight, and keep it from falling out. The side of this pocket that is facing the middle of the napkin should be open, but not the other side.
Slap bracelet side pockets^
One side of the pocket has to be open. This should be the same side on both pockets.
Final first prototype with correct slap bracelet layout.
First prototype with a silverware holding pocket in the middle.