The SkyFlo is a connected spout of liquor bottles that is part of a liquor management system. It can pour be installed on a variety of liquor bottles, can be programmed to meter varying amounts of liquid per pour and can detect when there is no more liquid in a bottle. It then relates this information back to a system to manage inventory.
My role in this project was as a project manager and mechanical engineer at a consulting firm. We were tasked with helping L2F redesign and existing product which had problems with reliability, design, and longevity. We first did a root cause analysis of the problems of pervious version, which included sealing issues, bottle detection issues, and materials that were not suited to interface with alcohol. We also worked with the industrial design team to make their vision of lighting and touch interface possible. In addition, the charging system was redesigned to use induction charging.
The product is currently on the market and has also received a patent, on which I am listed.
The Ninja Foodi is a combination air fryer and pressure cooker. It comes with two lids, one for air frying, one for pressure cooking, as well as various internal cooking stands. The user interface allows the user to select pre-programmed heat cycles or manually enter set points and times.
My role in this project was as the lead engineer. I worked with groups from many disciplines, including marketing, design, culinary, electrical, mechanical and IP, to go from the concept of combining these two styles of cooking to have a planned architecture. There were significant challenges in prototyping, product safety, ergonomics, and feature selection, which all needed to be dealt with on a very tight time line. The product was launched and was a beloved by many users. The design also resulted in a patent, in which I am named.
The Nutri Ninja Nutri Bowl DUO, or NN102, is a personal blending and food processing system. It has a variety of attachments for single-serve blending and small-serving food processing. The push-button user interface allows the user to operate it manually or use preprogrammed cycles.
I helped see the NN102 through multiple prototype builds, as well as all the engineering builds, working as part of a multi-disciplinary international team to ensure a successful product launch with all desired features.
We faced many technical challenges when features were requested after engineering builds had already begun. With limited time and product budget, I tackled the technical challenges by quickly brainstorming many solutions and then ranking them according to criteria like feasibility, price, and speed to implement. I quickly prototyped the solutions and was able to find a low-priced solution that minimized delays in production.
The Nutri Ninja BlendMax DUO, or BL2012, is a high-powered drink system. It has both single-serve and pitcher attachments to offer flexibility in quantities. It has the fast stack blades of any Ninja product, as well as the largest pitcher.
I helped oversee the BL2012 through multiple prototypes and engineering builds to production. Working with an interdisciplinary, international team, we worked through many technical challenges in order to increase the speed of the blades and the size of the pitcher. Through many mini-builds and accelerated testing, we were able to launch a product that met the desires of the marketing team.
Gradiant is a water treatment startup that uses a new, award-winning technology to desalinate brine with a very high salinity.
While I was at the company, we designed, built and commissioned a pilot plant for the technology. We then expanded it into a full commercial plant. This involved many detailed designs.
I created the design for the humidification tower of the expanded plant. These towers not only needed to be designed to meet the technical needs of the technology, but also had to be able to be easily shipped, deployed, serviced, and redeployed. It was a very iterative process to come up with something that met our budget and that the vendor felt they could make within our timeline.
I designed piping manifold to allow two different systems to feed into any of three different filter presses. The system was in a very limited space and needed to be able to be built easily in the field and easily operated manually. I made initial designs and got feedback from both our construction team and operations team before creating the final design, and helped adjust the design in the field as the facility was constructed.
In my senior product design class, I was a part of team that created a grocery basket attachment for a wheelchair. We did market research and user testing, and went through three full iterations of the product over the course of the semester. It is easy to assemble and disassemble into three parts, so that it can be quickly put on and taken off for use, as well as stored easily between uses. The attachment mechanism is a specially designed clam which will be easy to use even for those with limited dexterity. There are vertical and horizontal adjustment mechanisms, which mimic those that already exist on wheelchairs and only need to be set once. The basket can sit either above the user's lab or off to the side to allow for maximum mobility for the user. The basket is designed to hold up to 40 pounds of groceries and is collapsible.
I organized the team that created the attachment and adjustment mechanisms for the basket. I also helped design and fabricate each piece. I divided the work between individual team members, created a schedule for deadlines, and then met with each member to create a design that would fit with the other pieces.
