Yum

Catherine Grogan

October 8, 2016

1 Comment

Yum is a food preparation set made up of three bowls and a dual function chopping board which aims to encourage correct portion sizes and ultimately reduce food waste. The floor of each bowl is raised, giving the user the feeling of a large bowl which doesn’t require a large amount of food to be filled. This unique floor also acts as a measuring device when the bowl is flipped upside-down, allowing users to correctly measure rice, pasta and porridge while the chopping board provides references for meat and vegetable portions.

After research into the area of food waste, we wanted to tackle food waste in the home. This led us to looking at utensils which could encourage correct portion sizes, ultimately reducing food waste.

The contemporary style and colour of the bowls allows them to be easily stacked and stored whilst also fitting into neutral colours found in kitchens. The shape was also created to give users the feeling of a large bowl.

We started of by prototyping from soft sebatool, cutting it to size, turning it on a lade and creating various bowl shapes. We then chose the shape which suited all of the characteristics that we wanted the bowls to have. From there, the bowls were created on Solidworks, sent to the milling machine and individually milled to shape.

For the finish, we spent a long time sanding and preparing the bowls for painting which went on in layers, sanding after each to give the smoothest possible finish.

The chopping board was initially sketched and prototyped with a combination of cheaper soft woods and sebatool to find a shape that suited. It was then made up in two parts, each hand cut, mille, laser cut, glued together and sanded for a smooth finish.

The response has been very good. It gave me some important tips to getting a high quality finish with my prototypes. I would love to have the bowls slip casted and made from ceramic but we quickly realised that the process of slip casting is quite time consuming.

This was a collaborative project between myself and Industrial Designer Gavin O'Leary.