PLTWarrows

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/736TQKJ


A group of students and I are in an engineering class participating in a senior project. We are to design a solution to a problem- losing an arrow while hunting or target shooting. We need to gather data through a survey and would appreciate it if you could respond to a few quick questions. Feel free to leave any suggestions or feedback as well.

Thank You Very Much.

Nomercy448

What flavor of engineers are you guys? I'm a ChE, and I gotta say, this is a lot more exciting senior project than I had - my team did a steam power turbine driven by a scrap tire pyrolysis unit with metal recycling. This would have been a lot more fun.

Although one of my professors DID like to include outdoors/hunting themed problems on his tests. For example: one problem was to determine the temperature inside a squirrels nest if a hunter MISSED shooting the nest and his shot severed the limb, causing the nest to fall 30ft to the ground, if the squirrel inside had just ate an acorn, the nest was X thick, wind speed was Y, and ambient temperature was Z. Generation, thermal transfer, transient convection rate, and differential based TOF, all wrapped up into one squirrel hunt. Another problem was to determine the windspeed necessary to smoke a prairie dog out of his den. Smoke has upward motivation based on thermal gradient and differential density, which would have to be overcome by the bernoulli effect of the wind across the air vent to "suck" the smoke into the den.

But anyway... Enough reminiscing, onto the firing line to take shots at your product/project...

Several thoughts from a fellow engineer and technology developer, who happens to be an avid archer/bowhunter:

(Fair warning: you'll probably be sorry you asked...)

• Archers that shoot a lot are prone to not lose arrows as frequently as those that don't shoot as often (lost arrows per session). They do shoot more, and do lose more, but in my experience, novice shooters will lose arrows at a higher rate than experienced shooters/hunters. Novice shooters are less apt to invest in expensive products, since their overall investment in their "kit" is generally lower.
  
  
• Price is a major driver. Competing products are ~$10 per arrow. Relatively speaking, a very expensive arrow that is lost while hunting with the broadhead attached will be $35-40 (premium carbon shaft = $14, premium broadhead $13, shaft wrap $2-3, and lighted nock = $12). Cheaper arrows that are lost while practicing with a field point might only cost $10. As mentioned above, more experienced shooters are less prone to lose arrows, but they are more prone to have more expensive arrows. The shooters that are more prone to NEED a recovery aid, because they lose a lot of arrows, will be the guys that don't invest much in their arrows to begin with. So it's a tipping point. Experienced guys have a lot invested in arrows, but don't lose many (we wear them out, or break them usually), impact is high, but risk is low. Novice guys might be at higher risk of losing arrows, but their impact is low.
  
  
• The target market will be hunters. Hunters tend to spend less on arrow components than competitive archers. Target archers don't lose arrows, and frankly, we go through a lot of arrows, so losing a few doesn't really make much difference. When I was competing regularly, I'd go through 3dozen or more arrows a year, maybe losing 2. Relatively speaking, I could afford to lose those two. Target archers tend to be shooting in places where they either have good back stops, or open fields, or known impact positions. It's pretty hard to lose arrows while target shooting. So hunters are really the folks that lose arrows. Guys that hunt from elevated stands are much less apt to lose arrows than guys that hunt from the ground. So consider that an even smaller subset of archers when conducting your market survey.
  
  
• The major competition to be dethroned in the arrow recovery market is lighted nocks, and colorful arrow wraps. Lighted nocks offer an additional advantage of allowing the shooter to see their arrow in flight, and confirm impact position on game. Arrow wraps offer the advantage for pass through shots on game: presence and quantity of blood contrasting on the wrap, color of blood (lung vs liver, oxidized red vs "body blood" black/purple), foamy blood or flat, wraps provide a canvas that blood paints it's story upon. Wraps are exceedingly cheap, $2-3 per arrow. Lighted nocks are around $10 per arrow.
  
  
• Components of any kind add weight, especially electronics. Lighted nocks, for example, weigh 2-3 times what a "dumb nock" might weigh. This effects the flight characteristics of the arrow. Too much weight up front and my arrow nose dives, too much in the tail and it gets "squirrely." Even if the weight were evenly distributed along the shaft, it means my arrow weight jumps, which robs me of velocity, and potentially limiting my effective range. I target 5-7grns of arrow weight per pound of bow draw weight. If adding the product makes my arrows weigh over 8-9grns per pound of draw weight, then I don't need the extra penetration power from extra weight, I'd rather just have the speed. Consider into that calculation any additional counterweights I may have to add to correct my FOC - for example: to get my desired FOC when running Lumenoks and arrow wraps, I needed to jump up to 125grn points as opposed to the 100's I was shooting. So the total weight gain on my arrows because I was using those products was 37grns, even though the products only weigh 12grns.
  
  
• Electronics have batteries, batteries die. Even if I practice indoors where I cannot lose an arrow, I must practice with the same components on my arrows, or a weight balanced substitute, so my arrow flight is the same at practice as it is in the field. For example, I keep my Lumenok lighted nock batteries fresh by using old, dead battery ones for practice, then switching to fresh nocks for hunting. However, if I'm practicing somewhere that I could lose an arrow, I either have to risk losing my arrows by using dead lighted nocks, or run the batteries down on my fresh ones. If you are considering electronics, this is a major issue.
  
  
• Considering that scenario where I have a "dead set" for ballast and a fresh set for hunting: I would need give or take 10 of these products to get through a hunting season. 5 for practice, 5 for hunting. Or I'd need 5 cheaper "practice units" that simply act as ballast during practice. If I lose 2 arrows per year at $30 per arrow (which MIGHT be accurate for me), then for the product to pay itself off, really needs to run $6-12 just to break even. $60 per year, divided over 5 arrows for the fresh ones = $12. Then I'd use the dead ones from last year as my practice ballast.
  
  
• The product MUST be robust. During season, my wife and I will practice 3-5 times a week, shooting 50-150 pins per night, only using 5 arrows each. So out of a 4 month season, a given arrow in our quiver might take over 1,000 hits on target. Arrows are generally worn out after that many shots, but the components shouldn't be, I'd want to transfer them to new arrows. So the product needs to be able to survive thousands of impacts, going from ~350fps to dead stop within 4-8" (penetration into my targets). They cannot cease to function, and cannot break free in the shaft (older lighted nocks used to have their batteries break free and slide down the shaft, for example).
  
  
• Electronic tracking devices may not be legal in many states. Even though it's marketed as an "arrow recovery aid", once it's stuck in a deer, it's a game tracking device. I can't phathom an engineering solution that would produce tracking capabilities that would be light enough to mount in an arrow anyway, but if that's the direction you're going, it's likely a poor choice. This may eliminate potential ideas like radio transmitters or GPS units.
  
  
• The product MUST be reliable. If you're using electronics, and they don't activate 100% of the time when fired, OR, if they're overly sensitive and activate too easily without being fired, then you don't have a good product. If it's using electronics, it cannot be "always on", otherwise battery life will be poor.
  
  
• One other competing technology is a metal detector. Field points and broadheads are often detectable, so rather than having multiple solutions, one for each arrow like a lighted nock, I have ONE metal detector to search for "submarined" arrows that ran under grass or underground. However, metal detectors aren't cheap, and they're far from compact. I can lose a lot of arrows before it cost me as much as a detector. I'd also never carry the detector while hunting or practicing, so at best, I have to go back to the truck, then go back out to the field to use the detector = a lot of time and walking for a $10 arrow.
  
  
• In the theme of a metal detector, i.e. a higher priced single unit that picked up cheap arrow mounted components: The unit would have to be affordable. I'd never pay off my metal detector even if it helped me find all of the arrows I've lost in the last 10yrs. Comparatively, I have garmin tracking units on my coonhounds. The head unit was around $400 with one collar, and subsequent collars are like $100 each. Even if you could get the individual arrow transmitters down to $3, a $300 head unit isn't cost effective. I would, however, be more willing to spend more on an annualized basis for a tracking unit that could pick up arrows forever. I might spend $30 a year on new lighted nocks, but I'd spend $100-150 for a handheld that could track $2 arrow units. But again, this would potentially be illegal because it would constitute firing a tracking devide into game.
  
  
• If you are considering it, I have doubts that an audible signal would work in the field. Speaker, driver, and battery would be too heavy. The speaker would have to fit inside of a shaft smaller than a quarter inch in diameter as well.
  

If you come up with any ideas, it'd be great to hear them. I'm a "devil's advocate" type technology designer in such that if an idea can go in front of a firing squad, get a bunch of holes shot in it, then still have something left, it's a good product. Just takes cajones to put on the blindfold and smoke that last cigarette before you stand your projects up in front of a line of riflemen.