Bottle Opener project

Your mission should you choose to accept it: Make a Delrin bottle opener (that works!)

For our first ENGR160 project we learned and utilized:  The Engineering Design Process, cantilever physics, solidworks experience, and basic laser cutting skills. 

Cantilever notes

In our first class we learned about cantilevers: the longer the cantilever the stronger, yet also more susceptible to bending and breakage, so we have to balance these tradeoffs. We also had the option of thickness of material which could be used to escape some of the shortcomings of length.

Then following the Engineering Design Process we brainstormed multiple ideas and made a foam model of our favorite one, which was the one that was supposed to wrap around under the cap and pull up 

Brainstorm!

Foam model for iteration 1

Trial 1: After we created the foam model we made the delrin model and tested it on the soda bottle, only to find...

Our short and thin (we chose 1/8 inch thickness) bottle opener stood no chance against the bottle, it bent out of shape majorly.

Iteration 2, The Key to Engineering Success: Our final design completely reimagined our bottle opener, rather than wrapping around half of the bottle cap we decided to focus on trying to get a small piece of delrin under the cap and use leverage to pop the bottle and made the bottle opener thicker (3/16 inch this time). We also added some aesthetic improvements by making it key shaped and engraving the words "ENGR 160" on it. Yet when we finally printed out the piece (after causing some toxic fires via burning delrin) we found that the piece supposed to go under the bottle cap was too thick, so we put some elbow grease into it and filed into a sharper edge. When we first tried it the edge chipped but eventually as we filed it down more we opened the bottle easily without chipping.

Final filed edge

 Final (Countdown) test: The final test went just as planned, our bottle opener successfully opened the bottle without breaking!

What would we change if this were to be mass manufactured: Our main fear with this design was the chipping of the sharpened edge, we would look into other materials that don't chip as easily.