Interlocking Reusable Spill-Proof Travel Bottle Design
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current travel bottles are inefficient for transporting personal care products due to size limitations, leakage issues, waste generation, and lack of compatibility for various product viscosities, and often reveal product contents, which is environmentally harmful and inconvenient.
Innovation Solution
Interlocking reusable spill-proof containers made from recycled ocean-bound plastic with a petri, center, and cap design, featuring attachment mechanisms for secure stacking, integrated pumps for easy dispensing, and customizable labels, allowing for multiple products to be stored without leakage and minimizing waste.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Weight of moving object
If travel bottles are made small to comply with TSA regulations, then portability is improved, but product access becomes difficult and waste increases
Solution Approach 1:
The bottle is divided into two main segments: a rigid inner bottle that holds the product and a flexible outer bottle that provides structural support and dispensing functionality. This segmentation allows the inner bottle to be optimized for product storage while the outer bottle enables easy dispensing through its squeezable nature, solving the contradiction between small size and ease of product access
Solution Approach 2:
The outer bottle is designed to be flexible and squeezable, allowing dynamic deformation during dispensing. This dynamic characteristic enables users to easily extract the last drops of product by squeezing the bottle, overcoming the limitation of rigid small bottles that waste product at the bottom
2Ease of manufacture
If travel bottles are made from single-use plastics, then manufacturing is simple, but environmental damage increases
Solution Approach 1:
The bottle is designed to be refillable and reusable, allowing the inner bottle to be recovered and refilled multiple times. This eliminates the need for continuous production of new single-use bottles, reducing environmental waste while maintaining manufacturing simplicity through the use of common plastic materials
Solution Approach 2:
The bottle combines two different materials: a rigid inner bottle (typically glass or rigid plastic) and a flexible outer bottle (soft plastic). This composite structure provides both durability for reuse and ease of manufacture, while the reusable nature reduces environmental harm compared to single-use alternatives
3Loss of information
If travel bottles are made translucent to show product contents, then product identification is improved, but privacy is lost and product waste increases
Solution Approach 1:
The outer bottle can be made in various opaque colors that hide the product contents inside, providing privacy while still allowing product identification through labeling on the exterior. This solves the contradiction by maintaining information access through labels while preventing visual exposure of contents that leads to waste
4Device complexity
If conventional travel bottles are used without interlocking mechanisms, then device complexity is reduced, but packing efficiency and organization deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple inner bottles can be combined within a single outer bottle, or multiple outer bottles can be interlocked together to form a compact unit. This merging approach improves packing efficiency and organization without significantly increasing individual bottle complexity, as the interlocking mechanism is integrated into the bottle design
5Adaptability or versatility
If bottle necks are made small to fit standard products, then compatibility is improved, but complete product removal becomes difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The outer bottle's flexible and squeezable design allows dynamic compression that pushes product toward the neck and enables complete extraction. This dynamic mechanism overcomes the limitation of small rigid necks by using external pressure to move viscous products toward the opening, eliminating waste without changing the neck size
Data Source
AI summary
An interlocking reusable spill-proof container is disclosed. More particularly, an interlocking reusable spill-proof travel bottle that can house a cosmetic or personal care product, or separately house multiple cosmetics or personal care products is disclosed.