Bottle Opener Results

Before printing our bottle opener from the laser cutter, we finalized the design and decided on the thickness of the plastic we should use. We hesitated between 1/8" and 3/16" inches thick and ended up choosing the 3/16" plastic sheet because we wanted the bottle opener to be sturdy.

The Laser Cutter is a really cool machine and relatively simple to use. Before printing out the design, on the computer, that is connected to the machine, you have to place it on a grid that corresponds with a grid inside the machine. Then you tell the machine where the laser has to start and you adjust the velocity of the laser according to the width of the plastic sheet. and within a couple of seconds... ta da! the laser cuts up your design and it is ready for use!


Here are some pictures of the Laser Cutter making our bottle opener!







Our bottle opener looks really cool and it is supposed to look like a face, but because of white color of the plastic, it looks more like a ghost.

Unfortunately when we tried our bottle opener, it did not work. We were worried that the width would be too large and that was exactly the problem. The ridges were not able to fit underneath the cap. We had two solutions for this problem: 1) File down the two ridges 2) Reprint the design on the 1/8" inch plastic sheet. So we tried both!

1st solution:We filed down the two ridges on one side of plastic and tried to open a bottle. It worked! Our problem was in fact that the width of the plastic sheet was too large. Now we wanted to see if it would work on a thinner sheet of plastic and prevent us from altering the bottle opener in any way.

2nd Solution:

With the 1/8" inch plastic sheet, our bottle opener worked! The ridges nicely fit underneath the cap and opened the bottle perfectly! Even with the thinner plastic, the opener was sturdy and didn't seem like it was going to break. It seems that our rectangular design was a good choice because it made the bottle opener less likely to bend and break. We were happy that we were able to fix our problem without making any changes to our original design and that we could finally enjoy our sodas!

The Bottle Opener Challenge

Partner: Esther
Our first challenge was to design a bottle opener using SolidWorks and a laser cutter made from a single piece of Delrin plastic sheet (either 1/8", 3/16", or 1/4" thick).

We first searched the internet to find inspiration for a design. There are various types of bottle openers, some more complicated than others, so we tried to focus on the bottle openers that could be made in one single piece. We also decided to design a bottle opener with an oval- shaped opening. This type of design would be easy to replicate on a plastic sheet and it could also allow us to be creative by cutting the sheet in any way we wanted. Here are some examples:

We first started sketching some ideas and figuring out the dimensions of our bottle opener. Figuring out the oval shape was the trickiest part because we had to make sure it was not too small or too large . The width of the hole that be slightly bigger than the width of the actual bottle cap. The length of the hole was tricky because we wanted to include two ridges that would fit underneath the bottle cap. Our biggest concern was that the ridges would in fact be able to fit underneath the cap. Therefore, we had to make precise measurements and take the width of the plastic sheet into consideration. Here are some of our sketches:

After sketching and finding the dimensions, we made a model out of foam board. We placed the foam bottle opener over the cap and we saw that the two ridges would not be able to latch on to the cap. Therefore, we decided to make the opening slightly bigger and in doing so, we altered our original design by having the upper end arch out instead of arching inwards. This would give more space and allow the ridges to pull up the bottle cap properly.

Then we used SolidWorks to transfer our design into a basic outline that would be used with the laser cutter. Drawing the opening was the most challenging part of this process. Because it isn't a conventional shape, it took more time to define the whole outline and figuring out how the drawing tools worked. We had some difficulty going back to our design and altering it and figuring out why our design was over-defined. But with some help from the professors, we successfully completed the design and we were ready to test it out...