The Case of the Collapsible Cup

I would like to begin this post by saying that our original idea had almost NOTHING to do with a collapsible cup.

As a matter of fact, the only thing these ideas had in common was the fact that they were both cups.

Our goal was to develop a prototype of something. As many of us had had problems concerning the dining hall cups, we decided to try and do something about the condensation that occurred when one got a cold drink.

After a stressful hour of trying to make a cup that worked, a member of our group angrily crushed our prototype, and it was through that that we decided to make a collapsible cup.

Our idea consisted of four main parts: Two rings making up the top and bottom of the cup, a waterproof, collapsible middle, and two supporting stands on the side of the cup to ensure that the cup wouldn't collapse while one was drinking from it.

Our first step was to create the base of the cup. As this is an alpha prototype, we used the materials that were most readily available. We cut out foam circles with a radius of 45 mm, and then cut out a portion of the bottom so that the supporting stands could easily collapse under the cup for simple storage. We then created the support stands using cardboard. We prepared a total of 5 bases just in case something went wrong when we tried to create the cup

After creating the bases, we inputted the data for our rings into the 3D printer and continued working while waiting for the rings to be created.

We decided that the best way to make a collapsible cup would be to use a plastic, sheet-like material that could easily fold and expand. We cut a plastic Ziplock bag open and wrapped the material around the cup, creating prototype number 1, where the top of the cup folded over the support stands. We proceeded to duct-tape the sides and created this rather aesthetically pleasing model.

Isn't it just adorable?

However, we realized that this cup was not stable enough, and proceeded to add two rings to the model to create a more stable rim for one to drink from.

Our final product looks like this. After adding the rims, the model was able to support itself and the rim would not collapse when one touched it. It could collapse to form a flat, portable disk.

Overall, it was a very interesting experience. I didn't know how hard it would be to create a prototype, and learned about all of the things that went into consideration when creating one. Failing our first product also showed us how not all ideas end up turning out the way they were meticulously planned in the beginning.