Corner-Foot Cutting Board for Clean Contact and Nesting Storage
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cutting boards fail to prevent cross-contamination and surface contact with countertops, leading to potential biological hazards and inefficient drying when stacked or stored.
Innovation Solution
A cutting board design featuring feet at each corner that extend beyond the board's surfaces and edges, with concave and supple bottoms for non-slip contact and convex tops for nesting, allowing the board to stand vertically or stack securely without surfaces touching, thereby preventing cross-contamination and promoting airflow for drying.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If the cutting board is designed with feet extending beyond all surfaces and edges, then cross-contamination is prevented and food safety is improved, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The cutting board is segmented by adding four separate feet at the corners, each extending beyond the board edges. This segmentation prevents the board surface from contacting the countertop, eliminating cross-contamination while keeping each foot as a simple, independent component.
Solution Approach 2:
The feet act as intermediary elements between the cutting board and the countertop surface. These feet elevate the board, creating an airspace that prevents direct contact and potential contamination while allowing the board to remain stable on the surface.
2Stability of the object's composition
If the bottom surface of feet is made concave and supple for non-slip contact, then stability is improved, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The bottom surface of each foot is designed with a concave curvature and supple material properties. This parameter change allows the foot to conform to the countertop surface, creating a non-slip contact area that enhances stability while being manufacturable through standard molding processes.
3Productivity
If the top surface of feet is made convex for stable stacking, then storage efficiency is improved, but manufacturing complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The convex top surface of each foot is designed to nest within the concave bottom surface of feet on boards stacked above it. This nesting arrangement creates stable vertical stacking configurations with airspace between boards, maximizing storage efficiency while using simple geometric forms.
4Object-affected harmful factors
If feet extend beyond all edges to prevent surface contact, then food safety is improved, but the area occupied by the board increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of expanding the entire board surface, only four discrete feet at the corners extend beyond the edges. This segmented approach provides contamination prevention while minimizing the additional footprint area, as the feet are concentrated at specific locations rather than distributed across the entire surface.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The design effectively prevents cross-contamination, enhances food safety, and allows for efficient drying and space-saving storage configurations by maintaining an airspace between the board and surfaces, reducing the risk of re-contamination and improving aesthetics.
Implementation Method 1
the lower surface of each of the feet is concave and supple to better form a non-slip contact with the counter upon which the cutting board is being used
Implementation Method 2
The top surface of each of the feet is convex to complement the concavity of the upper surface so that boards can stack in a stable configuration with airspace between boards
Data Source
Figure 1~3
Figure 4~6
Figure 7~8
AI summary
A rectangular cutting board (12) having a foot (14) at each corner. Each foot (14) extends above and below the board (12). Each foot (14) extends beyond each adjacent edge (23, 24, 25, 27) so that in any orientation of the board on a flat surface (26) no part of the board touches the counter. The feet (14) each have an edge perpendicular to the surface (20) of the cutting board (12) to stand the board vertically for drying or storage. The bottom of the feet (18) are concave and the top of the feet (16) are convex. When multiple similarly sized boards are horizontally stacked the bottom side of the feet compliment and nest into the top of the feet of the cutting board below.