Reed Case/Water Cup Holder

Hi my name is Yuh-Boh Feng and I' am currently studying as a Classical Saxophonist at New England Conservatory. During practice I had an idea about creating a product that could make the lives of woodwind musicians more convenient. As a saxophonist, I alsways needed to find a water source to fill my water cup which can be frustrating and especially stressful right before auditions/rehearsals/performances and I thought, "what if I could create a watercup that could hold some reeds while wetting it at the same time?" 

I shared my idea with Annie Philips, a faculty member at NEC's Entrepreneurial Musicianship Department and after some discussion, I started to draw some concept art for my  product.


As you can see, these were some early designs I thought of at that time. There are more pages but I think you get the idea.

Next, I began to refine my ideas by asking various woodwind musicians at NEC and asked them about what their ideal water cup holder would be and what they would like to see. After taking in some suggestions, I realized one quality that they all wanted in the product: Space Friendliness. It seems like they all wanted something that would not take up too much space.

Later on, Annie found a class in 3D modeling and Printing and suggested that I take the class. After our lesson, I went straight into designing my prototype and it came up like this.

  and this is what it looked like after some 3D printing.

The project was put on hiatus due to work at school and other matters...

The project began to pick up in the next semester when during class, Annie introduced me and my project and described my product as a "reed case." It was at that moment that I had a new idea. What if I combined the functions of a reed case with a water cup? Again, I designed a new model.


and it came out like so,

As you can see, the small slits are where you can slide your reed inside and the hole in the back is where you can insert/dump the water. The bumps on the side would be a button that when pressed, would make the reed pop out from the case and be easily taken out.

However, the problem arose when I began losing confidence since I could not figure out what the next process is and the EM Department had very little experience in product making projects. Also having almost no confidence in myself to take on such a huge undertaking due to my history in failing most of my goals did not help my assertiveness.

However, after some research into prototyping companies, I was able to make contact with Empire Group in MA that specializes in prototyping products. After some discussions, we ere able to refine my product further. 

After some talk about pricing, the formal quote added up to 4,000 dollars in design and more for engineering and so on. I hope that those who has continued to read this will help me achieve this goal in creating a product that can potentially help many woodwind musicians in all levels. 

Anything will help! Even sharing!