Bottle Opener

When looking at a bottle and a bottle opener, its apparent that the part of the bottle opener that was placed at the bottom of the cap was the rigid body of the cantilever and the bottle cap itself was the perpendicular plane, subject to possible deflection. Thus, we had to figure out just how sturdy, strong and long and we needed that bottom part of the bottle opener to be in order to cause deflection of the bottle cap. However, at the same time, one could look at the bottle opener as the perpendicular plane in comparison to the bottle itself, which would be the rigid body. In this case, we also needed to make sure the bottom part of the bottle opener was strong and sturdy as not to deflect (break off of or chip during use).

Based off of this information, we could influence the length (L) and stiffness of the cross-sectional area (I) (including H and B) of the bottle opener, which heavily influenced our design, but we couldn’t influence the material stiffness (E). F would relate to the force exerted by the person opening the bottle so it would’ve been difficult factor into the process. We also couldn’t change any of the variables pertaining to the actual bottle.

From start to end of this project, our idea of what we wanted our bottle opener to look like stayed pretty consistant. Our sketches started out by exploring different ways to put a point of force on one side of the bottle cap while having another point of force at the bottom of the bottle cap as to flip it off. From there, we were able to decided on the basic look we wanted, an inverted “v” and made a few mock-ups out of form core, finally arriving at an option that wouldn’t be too flimsy. Next, we switched to solid works, changing and rearranging our bottle opener 6 different times until we felt comfortable in its ability and presentability.

With our first laser cut bottle opener, the whole thing was small and almost flimsy and the part placed under the bottle cap was too thin and long and would chip a lot when used. The second opener that we made was much smaller with the intent of fitting comfortably onto a key chain. However, the distance between the point that sits on top of the cap and the point that went under the cap was too large and it was nearly impossible to open a bottle. The third try decreased that distance and while it was relatively easier to open the bottle, the opener still kept chipping. From here, we switched up our design a bit, turning the bottom part of the opener into a sturdier piece by changing the angle at which it came off of the rest of the part and the thickness. However, we underestimated the space between the top and bottom parts and a bottle cap couldn’t even fit in the opening. Our next design remedied this problem but it felt a little awkward as the bottle opener kept hitting the bottle when we tried to flip off the top. In our final bottle opener, we fixed that problem by adjusting the angle at which the bottom side of the bottom part meshed into the rest of the bottle opener. I really like the overall end shape and how nicely it fits into your hand, especially with the grove we incorporated for one to place their thumb for more leverage. Yet at the same time, if we had more time, I would’ve liked to make the design more aesthetically pleasing, whether that would be through shape or colors.

This are the various ideas we came up with during the brainstorming process.

These are the bottle openers we made from start to finish of the whole process.

 These are the various mockups we made out of form core, the one on the right being the first and the one on the right being the final.

This is the first model we made on solid works.

 This was the second model we made on solid works.

This is our final model on solid works.