Storage Unit for the Girls Bathroom

 Storage Unit for the Girls Bathroom

For our maker fair project, we made a storage unit for free hair ties, pads, and tampons for the girls' bathrooms. We wanted to make these basic supplies easily accessible for everyone and didn’t think it was fair that girls had to pay for pads and tampons at a school.  Also, who brings money to a bathroom at the passing period? Also, we decided it would be fun to add hair ties to the mix, although it’s not an absolute necessity, it is definitely nice to have some easily accessible in case you need to put your hair in a ponytail or get your hair out of your face in PE. 

Some of our challenges included figuring out how to build the shelving units, how tall were they going to be, if they were going to have three or two compartments, and what to put in them. Another challenge was figuring out how to attach the different containers together—we weren't sure whether to use hot glue, drills, or wire. Another challenge was that the string we were using to tie the three baskets together was not stable enough. We ended up using lanyard string, though I'm sure that if we had more time we could have found an even better alternative.

We learned that when measuring wood you must take how thick the actual piece of wood is into account. We also learned how to safely use a jigsaw to cut wood. Finally, we learned the importance of measuring before you cut your materials.

Our next steps will be to talk to the head of school and ask if we can instal out shelving units into the girl's bathroom. Also, to actually finish both units.

If you do this project you should start off getting the measurements and design down before even thinking about building. Like the Russian proverb says "Measure seven times, cut once."

Depending on the materials you specifically use (different brands, shops, etc…) it should cost around $56 to start off. Ongoing, this specific project requires a steady flow of refills for it to be useful. The cost can also vary if you supply something besides hair ties, such as deodorant wipes. 

We didn’t use any outside sources we just had the idea and got to work!

Overall this was a really fun, useful, and rewarding project that anyone can do.