Designing a better hair straightener

Abstract

The Simply Straight Hair Brush was designed and built. The aim of the Simply Straight Hair Brush was to straighten hair faster and better than any product currently on the market. The current products were studied and the idea for a hair brush with heated bristles was developed. A product and patent search revealed that no idea similar to this existed. An experiment was performed to determine the relationship between tension, heat, and straightness. A design was formulated. Several heat transfer analyses were performed on this design. A prototype was built and tested for safety. The brush was then tested on several subjects resulting in significantly straighter hair. However, there was still room for improvement. The second iteration should have an optimized bristle configuration. It should also use a plastic with a higher maximum operating temperature so that the brush can be hotter. A third improvement would be putting in a temperature switch instead of relying on equilibrium for temperature control.