Coll
Kitchen Product
Introduction
The project required a design and creation of a kitchen product. I had decided to take a normality in a hawker setting and create a product from it. I went to some observation at different hawker centers and came to a relation that cucumbers are commonly used as one of the ingredients during the preparation of dishes. Thus, I want to design a kitchen product that is time saving and efficient to cut cucumbers.
Research
My observations revealed that there are generally two ways to cut cucumbers,
the circular types and the long slices type shown below. They generally use about 20 cucumbers per day, many stalls prepared a few cucumbers (8-10) in the morning and slice during free time whenever needed to ensure the freshness of the cucumber without having much leftover cucumbers.
Design Brief
They prepare the slices of cucumbers in batches to ensure freshness of the cucmber. However, this meant that they could run low and would need to chop up more during rush hours. The process of slicing individual slice are the pain points due to the rush hours. Unfortunately, If they rush this process, they might end up with injuries.
So how might we design a method where chief can cut long vegetables efficiently and safely
Sketch Concepts
These are the few chosen concepts. How does the first concept above works is that users will place the cucumber underneath the blade (indicated by the red area) while the user rest their hand on the side (indicated by the blue area) to stabilise the cutter and push their dominant hand down on the handle (indicated by the green area) to cut.
The other concept works by placing the cucumber on top of the blades (indicated by the red area) and then the users can press down on the hinged cover (indicated by the blue area) to push the cucumber through the blades to cut. Sliced cucumbers falls into the container underneath for storage.
Rendering
Rendering (detailed view)
Environment Render
Prototype
This shows a cross section of how my product COLL works. As shown, the cucumber is pushed through the top cover protrusion and get sliced during the process. the sliced pieces will then drop and the roll the slider. The reason why the container idea in my second concept was changed to this slider concept instead was because the container limits the number of times one can use as it gradually get filled. In order to use it again, the user would have to transfer the sliced cucumbers to another container/bowl.
From my observation, many hawker chefs usually leave the cucumber slices in a bowl. Therefore, I changed my design to suit that.
Feedback/Learning Point
The main improvement was the handle cover rather than making it separate part, I can design it where it is hinged to the body of the product. This reduces the need of an alignment part as the alignments are already fixed. The other improvements could be the blades, reducing it and changing the design to better suit the function.
I also start to understand why keen observation skills and interview is so important in this industry. I was able to get information I would not get through online research. It also help me to accept that not all problems can be solve but what I can do is maximise the benefits and convenience that design and creation can bring to users