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I wonder whether or not it would be useful to design and construct a double-sided Whiteboard (i.e. the front and back sides can both be used)?

The cost of the Whiteboard product would increase, but would it be worth it for the increased functionality?

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    $\begingroup$ There are already companies that make double sided whiteboards usually with an easel design, so its clearly worth it for some people. Regardless, the question seems to be outside the scope of what is covered here (computational modeling of materials). The question veers too far into the domain of engineering and economics for us to provide a good answer. $\endgroup$
    – Tyberius ♦
    Commented Nov 18, 2020 at 15:16
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    $\begingroup$ @Tyberius your answer seems adequate. Perhaps you can just write it as an answer. One (answered) question like this, out of the 840 total questions, probably wouldn't hurt. But if it's unanswered then it's one out of 90 unanswered, which is a bit harmful. Also the price of that product you found seems reasonable. Maybe there's not even an increase in cost/whiteboard space. $\endgroup$
    – Nike Dattani - No Free Time
    Commented Nov 18, 2020 at 16:54
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    $\begingroup$ Prashant, can you tell us more about why you asked this question? If it's expensive to construct the material in a whiteboard, then making twice as much of that material might be approximately twice the cost, but there's also twice as much space to write things down without having to erase it right away, so what was the motivation behind asking this question? $\endgroup$
    – Nike Dattani - No Free Time
    Commented Nov 20, 2020 at 3:05
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks Nike. Evaluation of Pros and Cons of manufacturing a product in terms of benefits to consumers and the cost factor. $\endgroup$
    – Prashant Akerkar
    Commented Nov 20, 2020 at 7:08
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    $\begingroup$ In the worst possible case, a double-sided whiteboard can be made by gluing two 1-sided whiteboards together, so the cost will be 2x the cost of 1 whiteboard. If you manufacture the 2-sided whiteboard all at once though, you can save the step of making 2 separate whitebaords and gluing the two, so the cost will be a bit less. Does that answer your question? Tyberius has also shown that many 2-sided whiteboards are on sale at Amazon, some for less than $20. Why do you need to an answer to this question? You are thinking of manufacturing them and selling them? The product already exists. $\endgroup$
    – Nike Dattani - No Free Time
    Commented Nov 21, 2020 at 2:24

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The product/material that you are considering to engineer, has already been engineered and been successful in the market. Three such examples are these ones which I found in a Google Images search, where you can see many more.

From a materials engineering perspective, no new material needs to be designed, since the device can be constructed using materials that have already been engineered, and just making $2\times$ as much of it. The maximum cost $C_2$ of making the double-sided device, in terms of the cost $C_1$ of making a single-sided device, would be:

$$ \tag{1} \max (C_2) = 2C_1 + \epsilon, $$

where $\epsilon$ is the overhead cost of having to glue together the two slabs of material. In reality though, the manufacturing cost might be much less than twice the cost of making one such device, because instead of making two separate devices and attaching them together, the whole two-sided device can be made simultaneously and possibly save some overhead costs.

Conclusion:

  • There is minimal engineering work to be done, and the materials-design portion of the project luckily doesn't require the design of any new type of material, since the most important material for such devices was already designed and can be re-used here (dry erase boards are typically made of the organic compound melamine).
  • The total cost of the melamine for the product will be proportional to the number of square cm of material desired, which will be at most double (in the worst case) the cost for one-sided devices, and in some cases the cost will be exactly the same as before because we would just avoid covering the the back-side of the melamine board. These costs are worth it, to the extent that the product is already on the market and people purchase it.
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  • $\begingroup$ Huh, didn't think the model would be this simple.. $\endgroup$
    – user4175
    Commented Aug 21, 2021 at 14:48

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