Our team started by brainstorming and identifying a list of potential problem spaces for our project and came up with 36 problem spaces. We then proceeded to systematically eliminate problem spaces based on a number of factors, including team interest, appropriateness for the goal of the course, how frequently a sample of our users experienced these problems, as well as how important these problems were perceived to be by the users.

Example of one of the screening matrices created to narrow down the problem spaces list

Through this process, we identified that "making it easier to get the last bit of soap/lotion/cosmetics residue in pump bottles" was the problem space most frequently experienced by users, with 59.1% of our survey respondents indicating that this was a problem they experienced personally. This was also one of the few problem spaces that currently doesn't have a significant amount of existing solutions available on the market to solve this issue. With that in mind, we decided to pursue this problem space as our project.

We identified a number of pain points for this particular problem space, which are listed out below:

• The tube of the pump functions best when completely submerged in a fluid, rendering it useless when the product is running low
• The products often have a high viscosity that makes them difficult to pour out or remove from the bottle
• The bottles generally have small openings that make the product remaining at the bottom of the bottle difficult to obtain with the user’s fingers or other tools even when the pump is removed

Furthermore, through our initial investigation of this problem space, we were able to generate a list of user and performance requirements a potential solution to this problem would need to have, which are as follows:

User Requirements

• Removes remaining product residue
• Maintains product integrity
• Easy to use
• Intuitive/easy to understand

Performance Requirements

• Lightweight
• Maximizes volume
• Biologically compatible
• Durable

After we identified our problem space, my team and I brainstormed different ways we might be able to solve this problem, and grouped all of the solutions we came up with into a few main categories:

• Scrapers
• Make the bottle stand upside down
• Pump tube changes
• Openable bottles
• Modifying the bottom surface
• Bottle permanently dispenses from the bottom
• Foldable/malleable bottles
• Mechanism to suck out the product

With the proposed solutions narrowed down into these categories, my team and I talked about the pros and cons of each solution type on the list and narrowed them down to 4 main mockups that would allow us to test the feasibility of our solutions. They are the conical bottle, foldable bottle, openable bottle with scraper, and plate scraper bottle. I personally sketched out the foldable bottle concept and prototyped the conical bottle mockup. The sketches and pictures of all the mockups can be seen below:

My team and I then set up a user testing protocol to determine which of the 4 mockups would be the most effective and intuitive for users to use.

We had our users attempt to pump out as much lotion as they could from a regular pump bottle (our base case) and the 4 mockups while we recorded the weight of each bottle before and after each test to quantitatively determine how effective each mockup was at product removal.

Additionally, my team and I asked our testers questions about their experience using each mockup to gather some qualitative data regarding each mockup. Our testing results can be summarized in the benchmarking matrix seen below:

Benchmarking matrix

Based on the results of our user testing, the conical bottle performed the best and met all of our user requirements, which is why my team and I decided to move forward with this design for our final prototype.

In order to refine our conical bottle design, I prototyped the conical bottom at different levels of steepnesses so that my team and I could conduct some performance testing. We tested each steepness mockup against 3 different liquids of varying viscosity (dishwashing liquid, shampoo, conditioner) by filling the mockups with a standard volume of fluid and attempted to pump out as much fluid as possible.

(L-R) Bottle stand, 2, 4.5, 6 mockups, Bottle top

Throughout this round of performance testing, my group and I noticed that the 4.5 mockup (middle steepness) was consistently outperforming both the base cases and the other mockups (with the exception of the dishwashing liquid test for the 2 mockup) in maximizing the removal of product from the pump bottle. The pictures below are an example of the amount of product remaining at the bottom of the 4.5 mockup at the end of the testing round.

Additionally, I also conducted volume and mass calculations with the CAD models of the conical bottle mockups to determine the changes in volume and mass in comparison to a regular pump bottle and the results showed that while there are increases in mass and decreases in volume due to the conical shape of the bottle, marginal changes in the dimensions of the bottle could significantly decrease the changes in mass and volume, accommodating for the minor disadvantages the conical bottom shape provides in those performance areas.

The quantitative results also support this conclusion, and a summary of those results can be found in the table below.

The final solution my team and I designed ended up being the Flide Bottle, which is meant to be an improvement to currently existing designs on the market in the following ways:

• Flide Bottle is a simple, intuitive, and durable solution
• Flide Bottle is able to maximize the amount of product users are able to remove from the bottle
• Flide Bottle maintains the product integrity and is integrated into the design of the bottle itself
• Flide Bottle is capable of helping users remove up to 98.5% of the product contained within the bottle
• Flide Bottle performs 33.2% better than regular pump bottles

I CAD modeled and 3D printed the bottle portion of the Flide Bottle prototype using Solidworks and a Stratasys Connex 350 printer, with polypropylene-like material and added a pump my team and I had purchased on Amazon to demonstrate the way the bottle would function.

My team and I then conducted another round of performance testing, which showed us very promising results in terms of the effectiveness of our final prototype in maximizing product removal. There are pictures below with examples of the effectiveness of the Flide Bottle.

The quantitative data my team and I collected also supports the effectiveness seen in the pictures, with the data indicating that it was effective across a range of product viscosities and overall performed better than current bottles on the market. A summary of the quantitative results can also be seen below the pictures.