Egg cracking fixture to improve the egg cooking pan
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Solution Overview
Problem
Eggshells often fall into cooking pans and egg whites run down the sides during cracking, leading to undesirable eggshell fragments in the dish and unpleasant odors from burnt egg whites.
Innovation Solution
An egg cracking fixture with a tapered body and elongated cracking ridge integrated into the skillet's sidewall, positioned above the pan bottom and inward from the rim, which creates a clean, elongated crack in the eggshell, preventing shell fragments and egg whites from falling outside the pan.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If eggs are cracked on the edge of the pan, then the cracking process is simple and quick, but eggshells fall into the pan and egg whites run down the outer sidewalls
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary structure (egg cracking ridge with guide walls) positioned inside the pan to mediate the egg cracking process. This ridge serves as a controlled interface that guides the egg cracking action while preventing shells and whites from reaching the outer sidewalls, thus resolving the contradiction between ease of operation and preventing harmful factors.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention extracts the harmful cracking function from the pan edge and relocates it to a dedicated ridge structure within the pan. By separating the cracking action from the pan rim, the design prevents shells and egg whites from falling outside while maintaining the cracking function, thus eliminating the harmful effects associated with edge cracking.
2Productivity
If eggs are cracked on the edge of the pan, then the cracking process is simple and quick, but egg whites run down and cling to the outer sidewall where they burn and give off unpleasant odors
Solution Approach 1:
The ridge structure with guide walls acts as an intermediary that channels egg whites into the pan interior during cracking. This mediator prevents whites from reaching the outer sidewalls where they would burn, thus eliminating odor generation while maintaining quick cracking operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide walls of the ridge structure preliminarily prevent egg whites from moving toward the outer sidewalls before burning can occur. By establishing this preventive barrier in advance, the design stops the harmful sequence (running whites → burning → odors) at its source without affecting cracking speed.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If a ridge structure is added inside the pan to prevent shell fragments and egg white runoff, then harmful factors are reduced, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The ridge structure is segmented into functional zones: a cracking surface for impact, sloping guide walls for directing flow, and a base for attachment. This segmentation allows each element to perform its specific function efficiently while keeping the overall structure simple and manufacturable, balancing harm reduction with complexity control.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention merges multiple functions into a single integrated ridge structure: egg cracking, shell fragment containment, and egg white guidance all occur at one location. This consolidation prevents harmful factors without requiring multiple separate components, thus minimizing device complexity while achieving the desired protective effect.
Data Source
AI summary
The egg-cracking fixture has a base portion adapted for conformal integration with the sidewall of the skillet, and further has a tapered body that extends away from the base to define sloping side walls and an elongated egg cracking ridge. The ridge is thus disposed within the confines of the skillet, generally above the pan bottom and inwardly from the rim. The egg-cracking fixture can be attached to the skillet in a variety of ways, including different removably attaching ways to allow the user to choose from among fixtures of different egg-cracking profiles.