Research & Concept

When choosing for an object to put my own playful spin on the first thing that came to my mind was a bottle opener. The function of a bottle opener is to pop the cap off of any glass bottle that doesn’t come as a twist off. The style of bottle opener that interested me the most was a hand held opener with a piece of metal stable enough to pop the cap off. These bottle openers also have a hole put into the design to attach a key chain. Having a key chain attached to the opener helps it become portable and easy to attach to bags to prevent misplacing it.

To make this design whimsical I plan on making it the shape of a lime. My dads favorite beverage is a Corona with a lime so I think this design would be a perfect gift for him. My main concern with creating this tool is figuring out how to shape it to crack open a bottle with ease. This will come with trial and error and I’m ready for the challenge.

Iterations

After completing my final model I was happy with how it turned out. The bottle opener clearly looks like a lime and the key chain loop fits perfectly in the bottom hole. The bottle opener is whimsical while also serving its purpose as a bottle opener to key chain to your cooler. One thing I’d like to change to the print is to find a way to get smoother edges at the bottom. I made many attempts at fixing this but I wasn’t able to create a base that would allow this.

When attempting to create the most efficient model possible I realized my first print on the right was too thick to be on a key chain and my hole was too high on the lime to fit on a key chain. When printing this key chain I printed it on its side which made the lime texture only appear on one which made me print the next one vertical. On my second print it was cosmetically correct and fit on a key chain but the bottle opening end was too short to pry open a bottle cap. This lead me to extending the mouth of the bottle opener on my last print fixing this functional error.

Final Print and Reflection

This is my final print of the lime bottle opener. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out but I wish I was able to get smoother edges from the printer. I’m happy with its functionality and will be attaching it to our family cooler over the summer. The process of making the opener function properly was very challenging but I enjoyed the process of making small tweaks to the design in order to get the results I was happy with. The aesthetic of the print was very easy to make so I spent most of my time on this project tweaking the mouth of the opener. My favorite part about the finished print was the size of it, the print fits perfectly in your hand and is pretty proportionate to most openers you’d attach to a cooler. I’m proud of my finished design and I know it’ll come in handy.