Feedback

This week in class, we were able to share our product idea and prototype with other groups. Many people had a hard time understanding what the practical use for our product was because it did not have a clear distinction between existing pour-over coffee filters, but once we explained how we wanted to make the pour-over coffee filter more autonomous, people understood how efficient our product could be.

Once our product idea was understood, many people gave us feedback about the safety of our prototype. Since our product was fully plastic, people did not know if boiling water would be safe. We explained that our prototype did not have the aluminum sheets that we hoped would insulate and cover the plastic parts of our product.

Another piece of feedback that was consistently given to us was how there was not enough control on the user’s end to how long the coffee grinds would be brewed. We agreed, and in order to change our product, we decided to add more “slots” that could be interchanged with different sized holes to control how quickly the water would drip.

The last piece of feedback that we diverted our attention to was how the base of our structure was designed. Since the legs that held up our coffee brewer was too close together, we found out that most cups were too big to fit between the legs of the brewed. In order to fix this issue, we made another print of the base with legs that were a lot bigger, but a lot further apart from each other. While we are trying to make sure that the product looks aesthetically good, this was a temporary fix in order to let cups fit.

Future

Our next steps now include plating our entire product with aluminum sheets to cover the plastic parts. While we are trying to figure out ways to check the safety and health hazards of our product, we are looking for new materials to insulate the boiling water from the plastic parts.

We were able to get in contact with the FabLab and found that they had a laser cutter that would allow us to make precise cuts to aluminum sheets. Our next steps include making these sheets to cover the entire product to make it look more aesthetically pleasing. Afterwards, we plan on giving our new prototype to our two testers to see if there is any improvement in their feedback.

Prototypes

A lot of what we learned for class this week involved prototypes. Different questions that were answered were: What is a prototype? How do you develop a prototype? What should be the minimum requirements for a prototype? Many of these questions were answered by use cases that highlighted the functionality of prototypes.

Coffee First Prototype

As a group, we were able to make our first steps for our coffee pour-over tool project. Finalizing our pour over assistant design, we decided to separate our products into two parts: a top funnel for the water to travel down, and a lower space holder for the coffee grinds.

The way we constructed the top funnel was compartmentalized into two slides. The top slide has several larger holes that makes water easily slide drop through. Right underneath this slide, there is another slide that consists of holes that are significantly smaller. With the addition of the two slide system, the user will be able to determine how fast water drips into the coffee, which determines the strength of the coffee.

An early problem we ran into was determining how our product would be a universal fit for all cup sizes. To avoid this problem, we made sure that our product would be easily editable by any one who would want to print it. Hence, the bottom part of our design, which has four different stands, are easily editable.

Another problem we needed to address was how the 3D printed material would react with boiling water. While we are still working on this issue with the helpers at the LabLab, it seems like this is an area where a lot of discussion takes place.

Planning Ahead

This week, my group plans on going into the FabLab and trying to print various prototypes that will address the boiling water problem. Need be, we will most likely order different printing material that is durable to hot water so that toxins are not leaked into the coffee.

If our slide system does not happen to work out the way we want, we will most likely try to come up with another system that allows users to control how fast water is seeped into the coffee grinds because we believe that is a foundational function of our desired product.

Shapeways

This week in class, we had a guest speaker from the company Shapeways. Shapeways is a company that focuses on big 3D printing projects. The speaker gave us a virtual tour via webcam to show the 3D printers they used. The scale of these printers were very big and definitely looked more industrial.

Prototype

After the guided tour and guest presentation, our group was given a good amount of time to finalize a prototype of our semester project. We finalized to go with the “assisted coffee pour-over” design, so we began to finalize sketches.

Pictured above is a sketch of what a normal coffee pour-over maker looks like. The design we had wanted to incorporate a similar design, but make it so that water could be completed filtered through without the manual pouring of water. This would mean that the contraption would have to be a lot bigger to store the water.

Others things that came to our concern was the durability of the material we choose to print our object. Since boiling water would have to be filtered through plastic, we wanted to somehow make it so that there would be an insulated material between the plastic and water. We found out that the FabLab has aluminum sheets that can be cut by laser to precisely fit our measurements.

Laser Cutting

We were back in the Fab Lab for class this week, and we focused on designing a wooden laser-cut box. The objective of making this box was to get familiar with finding silhouette designs that could be etched in with laser onto wood. We also learned how to get familiar with the software used to design specific cutoffs for wooden parts. The open source program we used to design our wooden-box was very user friendly.

The box looked something very similar to this with a finger-lock contraption. We laser cut out 5 pieces of wood with the ‘finger-pegs’ that interweaved with one another to make a secured box.

Pictured above is a real life picture of the laser cutting the plywood. The design I chose was the Chicago Bulls logo, and as you can see, the laser cuts out a very precise replica of the design you choose.

When the actual box came out, there were a lot of sides that needed to be sand-papered down because of the roughness of the wood. Other than that, everything else went great. The print matched the exact measurements I chose on the computer program. With learning how to use the different technology at the Fab Lab, I’m looking forward to go on my own time!