Overview

MAXTER, a sweet-mixing gun, lets people create their personal sweet depending on their preference! MAXTER can mix different stuffing ingredients, such as peanuts, cashew nuts and almond with soft or meltable sweets, like chocolate, caramel and nougat. After the ingredients are prepared in the gun, people can just pull the trigger. The stuffing ingredients will be crushed into soft sweets by a mechanism in the gun to produce an unique flavored sweet.

Time

Dec 2011 - Feb 2012

My Role

Concept Development
Product Design
Commercial Design

Type

School Project

Idea Exchange and Brainstorming

Some issues about gifts were raised and discussed by 4 discussion teams within 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, one member of each team was exchanged. They brought original discussion topic to the new teams and helped them to raise new ideas about this topic. The shifts were totally 5 times until no more new ideas generated. We got some inspiration from those discussion and then came out 10 initial ideas. Everyone could vote for their top 5 favorite ideas by giving a point sticker on sketches. We had to take one of our own ideas which had most high evaluation points. We could take other's ideas which we like and then develop those ideas.

4 Initial Concepts

01

ChocoPost

People lick stamps as well as chocolate. In addition, a piece of chocolate consists of many small chunks which are also similar to arrangement of stamps. The package has tree forms depending on the amount of chocolate inside.

02

Lego Candy

"Lego Candy" lets people can create their own shapes and tastes with small Lego parts sweets and then give it to others as a present.

03

Color Camouflage

The idea of "Color Camouflage" came from a test booklet for the color blind. People can buy the sweet box to arrange/ design their own pattern and hide them with sweets to give others as a gift.

04

Mixer Gun

The idea of "Mixer Gun" came from glue guns. Initial idea was that people can use a similar design to melt chocolate to write words or draw patterns. The idea further became a mixer which can help people to put their favorite stuffing ingredients.

Concept Development

The sweet-mixing gun was selected as the final product for developing. The toolkit box was designed for storage of the gun when it is not used. The containers for storage of ingredients were designed as well. The paper-made package which would be printed outline of the toolkit box was wrapped around the box. After discussion, the toolkit and changeable muzzles were reduced in final because they made the product too complicated.

Sketches and Rough Mockups

Many thumb-sketches were drawn to explore the shape of the gun. After that, rough mockups of the gun and its package were made in the real scale to decide more details of the product. The scale and shape of package was also decided after discussion.

Package Design

After the form of the package was decided. Three package designs were proposed. Some small illustrations of ingredients are used to express various sweets can mix together in the first package. The second package emphasizes the meltable sweets and an imagine of a gift. The third package, the final one, use black as a main background and some bright color, such as orange, grass green, and blue on the besides of packages. Those colors also represent different sweets. The logo of product with splash imagine is used in this final package.

CAD Modelling and Rendering

The 3D model was built by Alias and used for CNC modelling later. 3ds Max V-ray was used for the rendering.

Three versions of posters were proposed. The first two versions focus on the scenario. The last version emphasizes the outcome of the gun to let people know the function.

Model Making

The main shape of gun was made by CNC and refined by hand. Painting sprays were used for coloring the gun. The package was designed on the computer and printed out on the paper. Through cutting and folding, the package was done.

Final Model

The final works include not only the sweet-mixing gun but the packages of two ingredient sweets and the gun.

01

The Font Side

The transparent part of the package can show the contents to people easily.

02

The Back Side

The explanation how to use the gun to produce sweet bar shows in illustration. The nutrition information of sweets is also showed in the back side of the packages.

The Exhibition at Cologne’s ISM 2012 Trade Fair

ISM is the world´s biggest trade fair for the confectionery industry. ISM 2012, held at Cologne Trade Fair(Koelnmesse), attracted many producers and customers to visit. KISD cooperated with Koelnmesse to hold a student exhibition of future sweets with the theme "Sweets as Gifts". The exhibition, held at 10.2 in the Koelnmesse from 29th January to 1st February, attracted not only many people to visit but also a mass medium, ARD mediathek, to cover the event.

MAXTER
Sweet-Mixing Gun