My name is Naruaki Kobayashi and I’m an international student at College of San Mateo.

I designed 3d printed fish cooler bottle.

Step 1: Background

I used to go fishing on my days off. I would often bring a cooler box to put the fish in along with my fishing gear, but I felt it was hard to bring a big cooler box because I can't always catch fish. I also have to bring things like ice pack to keep the fish fresh in the cooler box, as well as stringers to drain the blood from the fish. In addition, surf fishing has recently become popular in Japan, and it is a hassle to wash the sand from the fish you catch with seawater. Therefore, I decided to make a cooler box like bottle that can be easily dissembled to be cleaned and that both bleed and preserve the fish. Shaped into a compact cooler bottle for each fish, it enables anglers minimize the amount that they have to carry when fishing, and bring it home in the best storage condition for the fish.

Step 2: Concept

I thought of something like the image above. To pull the stored fish out of the product easily without reversing it, the top lid and bottom of this product are removable with the screw feature. Excess water from the fish hurts the fish, so to keep it out of the fish, there is a hole at the bottom of the product that allows the dirty excess water from the fish to run outside of the product. As for the exterior, the conventional cooler box has a square shape, but I chose cylindrical shape to add the screw feature to fully connect with body and lids and to prevent water leakage at the joint. Cylindrical shape also produces strong durability since the contact area that attaches the inside and outside wall of the double-layered structure is larger in a spiral than in a straight line. It also evenly distributes external forces such as shaking and wind pressure, while squares are fragile at the corners when collided by accident. Regarding to appearance, cylindrical shape also enables us to see the stored fish from all angles.

Step 3: Design

This time, I designed the following parts: 1: top lid, 2: parts to hold the fish, 3: exterior, 4: bottom. The numbers of the parts are shown in the assembly diagram above. The detailed design is shown in the next section. In this way, a fish is stored in the bottle.

Step 4: Upper Lid

The two parts of the top lid are shown above: 1-1 is the lid on top of another lid 1-2. Holes shown in 1-2 allow cold water to run into the double-layered structure 3 when 1-2 is tightened with the exterior 3 (water does not enter the center where the fish is placed).

Step 5: Cylindrical Pack for Fish

The part used to hold the fish in place is shown above. The fish is gently held in place by the protruding rubber, and the fish is held upright to allow excess water and blood to discharge into the outside.

Step 6: Exterior

The design of exterior is shown above. It is made into double-layered circular shape, with cold water around the inner wall to cool the whole dimensions of the body. A cylindrical pack (2) with a fish fits the inner diameter of this exterior. It is made from transparent material so that the fish can be seen through it.

Step 7: Lower Lid

The lower lid is shown in the figure above, and as shown in 4-1, there is a penetrating hole which the dirty water and blood from the fish can pass through. Four anti-slip rubber feet, as shown in 4-2, are attached to stabilize the product when it is placed.

Step 8: 3D Printing

3D printing performed with the product model in steps above. The machines, software, and materials used were as follows

(1) Printing Machine: Form 3

(2) CAM Software: PreForm

(3) Material

Rigid resin: 1-2, 3, 4-1

Rubber like resin: 1-1, 2, 4-2

The results of the 3D printing are shown in above picture. Due to the size limitation of the 3D printing machine, the size was reduced to 40% of the size of the blueprint.

Step 9: Result

The following figure shows the 3D printed parts assembled and filled with water. I confirmed that the parts were assembled as instructed in the blueprint. The screws were precisely designed with which the lids and body were fully tied together, and there was no water leakage. However, although a transparent material is used for the exterior, it turned out to be cloudy, making it difficult to see the fish inside.

Step 10: The Most Difficult Point I Worked On

When the parts were formed using a 3D printer, because the dimensions of the design and the formed parts were slightly different, there were cases where it became difficult to assemble the parts. In particular, the screws on the top and bottom lids, which require precise dimensions, had to be reformed several times. I felt that it was necessary to understand the characteristics of 3D printers well to form the parts.

Step 11: Conclusion

The rubber on the lid and bottom and four rubber feet were elastic which can be bent back into place without leaving any marks. The non-slip rubber on the bottom also adhered firmly to the ground by increasing friction resistance. The joint of the protective cylindrical pack for fish could be opened and closed securely without coming off, and it successfully covered the fish with soft protrusions. As for the bottom, the center of gravity of the cylinder was stabilized, which prevented this product from falling down even when pushed slightly by wind or hands. The hole in the bottom to drain dirty water also worked well. As for the exterior, it offers structural rigidity enough to make a knocking sound when played with my fingers, and high strength enough not to break if dropped from the height of my chest by hand. Although it was not my intention, the exterior is just the right diameter to hold an iPhone 7 Plus. As additional function for usage of this product, it was interesting to discover this product to utilize as a light with iPhone 7 Plus inside instead of a fish.

What to consider more

I should have considered how long this product will work since rubber is used. The durability of this product also needs to be precisely measured.

Points to be improved

As the result shows, I need to use a more transparent material for the exterior to see the fish inside clearly. As for the design, in the initial design stage, I planned to adopt the crossing spiral of the outer wall to form the shape of a fish, but taking the flow of water into consideration, I decided against it because the water would flow more beautifully with spiral curves without intersection. Moreover, I found a drawback in that the water would not flow evenly unless I poured it from the middle. I think I should have devised a better mechanism for the water to enter the double-layered exterior, as well as a design specialized in cooler to make a fish stand out. For example, one possible solution would be to use the agricultural technology, the circular tank diversion works, to create a cylinder in the middle of the lid and pour water into it to create a mechanism that can divide the water into the outer holes at a certain rate. Also, this time, the storage function uses only water, so it is not suitable for storing fish for a long time. In order to make long-term storage possible, I should have modeled a structure that would allow us to put an ice pack under the lid to take advantage of natural convention of cold air going downward. The lid is made of rubber so that anglers can sit on it, but it needs to be made of a softer material for anglers to sit on it for a long time. The shape should not have been simple flat surface but should have been designed to reduce the burden on buttocks and lower back and to prevent fatigue even after long hours of use.