Next Generation Condiment Caps
Everyone's experienced the watery ketchup problem. And if not ketchup, probably mustard. We decided to do something about it for our capstone project at IIT.
Using the design process and engineering analysis we've learned over the past few years, we set out to design something that would alleviate us of this problem for good. Our solution? A new type of condiment cap - one that we like to call the Next Generation Condiment Cap, or NGCC for short. To fabricate and test our designs, we used Autodesk Inventor to CAD our cap models, then exported them as STLs to place in Cura, and finally converted into gcode. This was then loaded onto the MMAE department's MakerBot Ultimaker 2 3D printers and created. |
Using this process, we created many types of caps and filtering mechanisms and got to test them in real time, rather than run simulations with 3D models, which is what engineering projects are often restricted to. The evolution of these caps can be seen in the section at the bottom of the page.
The idea behind this cap is that of a simple water trap. By designing a conical protrusion underneath a typical cap that uses side slits instead of an opening at the bottom, water pools up around the extension, while ketchup moves through the slits and out the cap's opening. The diagram on the right illustrates how this works.
We took advantage of the lower viscosity of water, which makes it flow faster than the ketchup. Therefore, it will always pool first at the bottom of the cap when the bottle is turned upside-down, while the ketchup follows. We tested this design numerous times on both ketchup and mustard and found it to be successful. |
In the end, our group created a working design that effectively kept the water in the bottle, ensuring that only ketchup or mustard came out of the bottle. No more soggy burgers or hot dogs!
Throughout all of this, we learned more about the design process for things being engineered as consumer products, rapid prototyping, use of equipment like the 3D-printers, group work and communication. We also improved our CAD skills, both in modeling and documentation. If you're interested in seeing our progress throughout the 2016 spring semester, check out our progress blog, also accessible through the main navigation.
Throughout all of this, we learned more about the design process for things being engineered as consumer products, rapid prototyping, use of equipment like the 3D-printers, group work and communication. We also improved our CAD skills, both in modeling and documentation. If you're interested in seeing our progress throughout the 2016 spring semester, check out our progress blog, also accessible through the main navigation.