Design and development of an automated three axis machine that prints images on top of the foam of certain beverages

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2009.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 54).The goal of this research was to design and develop a working alpha prototype of the flagship product for a local startup called Onlatte, Inc. OnLatte specializes in automated printing of images on top of the foam of beverages such as lattes, cappuccinos, and even certain beers and they have proven the concept with their initial functional prototype. This functional prototype had not been designed with the formal product design process which incorporates customer and market research, feature specification development, and proper physical model development. This thesis follows the product design process that led to the development of a working alpha prototype of an automatic latte art printer that was handed off to OnLatte for further development on their way to a production ready product. The main areas of focus for the thesis were to establish proper customer needs and product specifications, and use this information to develop the form factor and the mechanical design of the three axes of movement that were to be incorporated into the machine. The designer created a series of iterative sketch models and technical models to test different mechanisms and methods of accomplishing the stated functional requirements. At each stage of the process, the pros and cons of each model were assessed and sessions were held to generate new concepts. These new concepts were then used in conjunction with the successful features of the previous concepts to further develop the product until a final alpha prototype that met all of the functional requirements was created. Thesis Supervisor:by Jeremy S.H. Richardson.S.B