Tooth brushing is probably one of the most tedious activities for kids. But as boring as it might be, it is also one of the most fundamental habits to maintain dental hygiene and avoid that dreaded visit to the dentist.
That is what a group of students from the New Petritzi High School in Serres had in mind when they created the “Brush n ‘Fun”.
The device, which is entirely out of wood, was created as part of a virtual student enterprise within the framework of the “Virtual Business” of Junior Achievement Greece association of entrepreneurship.
The idea was to make the time that you brush your teeth as fun as possible by adding music to the task.
Using Brush n ‘fun is simple. The only thing the user has to do is lift the toothbrush from its base, at which point a 10-second timer is activated and the music starts playing for two minutes, the time recommended by the dentists to brush your teeth.
The user can add their preferred songs via an SD card, songs of his choice and selects which track is played during the tooth brushing.
A light and a prolonged tone notify them when the recommended 2-minute time is up. The song stops only when the toothbrush is placed back in the base of the device.
“Our idea came about when we realised that our nearby people and ourselves brush our teeth in a hurry because we are often bored with the same dull everyday process. The survey we conducted in our village school (kindergarten, elementary school, high school) to 177 children confirmed our observations. 61% do not know how long they should brush their teeth, while 7% do not brush them daily. All the children said they considered brushing to be a very tedious process, which must end quickly”, the team of teenage inventors said in a press release.
They went on to say that they also wanted to raise awareness about the global effort to reduce the use of plastic, which is why they sued wood.
“How can we encourage children to brush their teeth at the right time, every day, without burdening the environment and the pocket of their parents? So, we came up with an auxiliary brush set called ‘Brush n ‘Fun’. It consists of a wooden toothbrush with a detachable head and a speaker stand”.
