Brief: Design a houseware product based in sustainability. (Prof. Will Nickley)

Location: The Ohio State University

Date: August 23 - December 7, 2022 (16 weeks)

Constraints: $100 budget, sustainability, connects to assigned research insights

Project Type: Partner project with Jason Dionisio (3rd Year Industrial Design)

Meet Lollihops: your tea, coffee, and hot chocolate drinking companions. Laser-cut from reclaimed bamboo cutting boards, these drink stirrers are adorned with either a honey or milk chocolate lollipop to melt in your mug, ideal for cold days and cozy nights. For tea drinkers, notches on both ends of the stirrer allow you to tie-off your tea bag. Lollihops are inspired by "tea pets" that originated in the Yuan dynasty of China in the 13th century. These adorable stirrers ensure you’ll always have a beverage buddy. Lollihops are reusable AND top rack dishwasher safe! Lollihops are the perfect stocking stuffer for any tea, coffee, or hot chocolate enthusiast in your life!

Winter Market is a 3rd year studio in the Department of Design at Ohio State. The class is structured in three sections: Research, Development, and Delivery. Students spend a month researching a topic of their choice, then trade insights with another team. With this new research, students develop two housewares products to present to a panel of professionals, who determine which product will be produced for delivery. The final products are then sold to customers at the Department of Design's Winter Market event, with profits benefiting the program as well as several student organizations. 

Jason and I conducted our ethnographic-style design research at Ohio State's Recreation and Physical Activities Center, the RPAC, studying personal space at the gym. While our initial research plan did not include the concept of personal space, our observations from our many visits led us to pursue the phenomenon. To see our research presentation, check it out under the "Research" tab on this site!

We traded research with classmates Maria Bowman and Easton Nguyen, who delivered several insights on tea and the tea-making process. See their presentation below.

Maria and Easton gave us three insights: 

1. For many, waiting brings an additional value to the tea process.

2. Commercial tea is seen more as an accessory than personal tea. 

3. Tea has cultural ties all over the world, but we often do not see them displayed in accessible tea products. 

Based on these insights, we spent the next month developing 2 viable product concepts to present to a panel that would chose one for us to move forward with. 

We started with a brainstorm and a sketch storm, identifying major themes we might be able to further develop. 

We narrowed the ideas from our sketch storm down to around 20 concepts and sketched them in slightly higher fidelity to communicate our thoughts to one another. Here are a few of our favorites:

After deliberation with our professor and our classmates, we narrowed our idea down and sketched at a higher fidelity to further develop our newer ideas. 

And after another round of discussion and development, narrowed it down to our final two:

To prepare for our concept presentation, we began experimenting with materials for both ideas. First up was the tea pet planter, which we hoped to mold from concrete. We attempted to create a concrete bowl using cement, but ran into a few obstacles when we were unable to separate the concrete from the bowl mold, despite using lubricant:

We revised the concept to focus in on just the planter pet itself, marketing it as a tea drinking companion that also encourages one to water their plants. We 3D modeled and printed a scale model and experimented with making silicon molds:

In exploring materials for the stirrers, we took a closer look into laser-cutting pressed palm leaf plates (looking to reuse materials), paint stirrers, and bamboo. We also experimented with making rock candy as well as honey lollipops to embellish the base of the stirrer. 

For our concept presentation, we demonstrated our ability to carry both concepts out during our studio's delivery phase. At the end, the panel chose for us to continue with the tea pet stirrers. See our presentation below: 

To bring our Lollihops into reality, we began collecting materials. We obtained several reclaimed bamboo cutting boards and cut them into planks, sanding any finish off so they'd be laser-cutter ready. 

Using a laser cutter, we cut out the design of our Lollihops on the bamboo planks. We made sure to tape the backs of the pieces to avoid charring. 

Each stick was washed, stained using black tea, and sealed with a food safe wood finish. We designed three different faces and three different stirring ends to create variety. The plan was to sell our Lollihops in packs of 3 for consumers to have one of each. 

With the sticks done, it was time to add their bases. Each comes with either a honey or chocolate lollipop on their base. This way, the pop melts in consumers' drinks as they stir. On the product package, we include both recipes so consumers can remake the ends on the sticks if they so desire. 

We designed the lollipop base of our stirrers in a honeycomb pattern, as the initial plan for these stirrers was for them to all have honey pops (the chocolate pops were added in much later to reach a broader audience, after the molds were made). We 3D printed our vision for the base and used those prints to make several molds out of food-safe silicon.

Looking to heighten the quality of our honey pops, we experimented with both a vacuum and pressure pot to reduce the amount of bubbles trapped in the honey as it hardened. We found the most success with the vacuum pot, however, the time required for it to be in the pot nearly matched the time it took for the honey to harden. We were only able to salvage a few honey pops from both experiments. 

To make the chocolate pops, we melted chocolate in the microwave, poured it into the molds, and covered the backs with either sea salt or crushed candy canes for an added touch. 

We packaged the pops using compostable bags that closely resembled cellophane, finishing each pack or single stick with a laser-cut tag featuring our logo as well as a QR code on the back leading to a website featuring both recipes, a look into our making process, use and care instructions, and our promo video. 

See here: https://lollihops.myportfolio.com

With that, our Lollihops were ready for sale! Enjoy a few of our promo pics here:

And our promo video, edited in Premiere Pro:

Here's Jason and I with our booth at Winter Market! (Pic will soon be added below)

This project offered a great look into the product development process on both ends, from research to actual craftsmanship. The fact that it was a partner project, too, gave us a better understanding of how to work in a team and collaborate to create something we were both proud of. 

This semester, we took a research insight, turned it into a concept, then developed it into a product that we were able to physically sell. We learned about new materials and processes, as well as how to push ourselves and what we thought were our limits past what we believed possible. 

"It's always tea time!"

- The Mad Hatter, Alice in Wonderland