a. Prediction
The purpose of this product is to froth milk and other substances. It works with spinning electrical machines. The market it was designed to appeal to is the food service market. Some design objectives of the product include fast frothing, clean frothing and energy saving. Some of the constraints that may have influenced the design is its heavy weight and spilling out of the cup when the milk is too little.
b. Observation
I think it works by spinning and hydrating the protein with H2O in the milk. It meets the design objectives overall because it’s very efficient and not very much time-consuming in milk frothing, and the frother actually works. It’s designed this way because when spinning from the bottom of the milk, it wouldn’t spill the milk outside and due to the rule of gravity, milk unfrothed will come to the bottom, making the whole cup equally frothed. The affordance is the instructions of the frother, and mapping is the handle and switch on it, for feedback, whether the milk frothers or not explains the whole thing.
c. Test
We did two experiments of the device, it failed the first time and milk spills out because the spinner works on the surface of the milk. For the second time, we digged the spinner at the bottom of the milk, and it works well. Therefore, we conclude that the functionality of the product depends a lot on the manual operations as well.
d. Disassemble
We put on our safety glasses. Carefully disassembled the device, and poured half a cup of milk. It works by spinning the milk and gradually making the milk to frother. It is made of three parts, the handle, the stick and the spinning metal wire. The metal wire and stick are the moving parts. We are surprised that the milk frother tastes pretty well, especially with coffee!
e. Analyze
The strength of this product is that it is easy to make, but the weakness is we have to handshake the cup. To refine, I think we can create an electronic handle for the product. I learnt to be paitience through disassembly of this device because it takes time to make milk frother and analyze the results.
Repeating steps a-c for the higher-end device with partners, I find the higher-end device has a much greater efficiency and better quality in cleanness, which makes it cost differential. If I am in the market for a milk frother, I would buy the higher-end device.
For me own device, after testing it, its function is also to frother the milk, and it actually fulfills its task pertty well! Except that we don’t think we can drink the frother afterwards, the metal doesn’t seem clean. The affordances is the handle on the cup, mapping for the lids on top, and our feedback is generally very positive. The strength of our product is that it is easy to produce, but its weakness is that it might need further moderation to increase its availability for clean. I would change the metal shaker to plastic ones so that the milk wouldn’t have chemical reactions with the milk.