Milwaukee Mixer
Building a hand powered cake batter mixer for a woman who lives with cerebral palsy and has limited mobility
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TIMELINE
April 2023 (3 weeks)
ROLE
Design Engineer in a group of 4 for the final project of an Engineering Design course.
SKILLS & TOOLS
Rapid Prototyping
3D printing
Woodworking
Market Research
Usability testing
DELIVERABLE
+ A one-handed cake batter mixing device prototype
+ An engineering poster explaining our design and process
Milwaukee Mixer ME40.mp4Final Project Design
OVERVIEW
This project was a collaboration with Natalie Fierce, YouTuber who lives with cerebral palsy and has limited mobility. We worked with her to design a device that would allow her to combine the cake ingredients independently, comfortably, and effectively.
STAGE 1: IDEATION & PLANNING
Before building our initial prototype, our group started with a brainstorming session on paper to get a sense of how we could incorporate all the user needs and requirements into our design. After multiple iterations of drawings, we landed on a flat whisk that is supported by an arm attached to the edge of the bowl and can be moved around to mix the ingredients and scrape the edges of the bowl.
STAGE 2: INITIAL PROTOTYPES
We built our initial prototype based on this design and tested the ease of use and mobility. Our first iteration, where the support is clipped to the edge of the bowl was too weak for the movements of the spoon and further there was not enough space to easily grip the spoon to mix ingredients.
To improve these issues, we built a separate stand that would stand over the bowl and a whisk with a longer handle for better grip.
STAGE 3: REDESIGN
After testing our design with rapid prototypes, we realized we needed to go back to the drawing board to refine our design. We found that the design of our low-fidelity prototype was good in that it supported the mixing utensil, but struggled to reach every part of the bowl. So we redesigned the utensil to have a paddle that scraped the batter at the edge of the bowl back into the middle where a whisk was there to mix. Further, we incorporated a crank mechanism with bevel gears to allows Natalie’s arm and hand to easily reach the handle and remain in a power grip.
STAGE 4: FINAL DESIGN
Following our second round of rapid prototyping, we were ready to create our final design. We 3D printed bevel gears so that the hand crank would turn the mixing paddle, built a strong wood frame with a suction cup base, and made the mixing paddle removable from the design for easy washing abilities.
The Milwaukee Mixer.pdfArcadia Ohnemus arcadia.ohnemus@gmail.com LinkedIn
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