Team Members & Role:

Cameron Brockbank: Team Lead

Nathaniel Ihley: Analysis Lead

Jack Powderly: Design Lead

Cristian Garcia: Design Lead

Nickol Marmolejos: Evaluation Lead

Samiul Akbor: Fabrication Lead

Abstract:

The current bottle filling strategy used by the UMass Athletic Department is both inefficient and labor intensive. Over 100 bottles must be filled for each practice and game, and each is currently filled by hand, taking upwards of 20s per bottle. Current solutions are costly and lack portability, alluding to a need for further improvement. We are aiming to expedite the water bottle filling process and reduce staff time loss and fatigue by designing an automatic bottle filling system, capable of filling six 32 oz. bottles in under 40s, all while mitigating the need to remove the cap. The prototype design is a gravity-fed system with six simultaneous filling straws and an innovative caddy stand for regulated water flow. When the weight of the caddy increases as the bottles fill, springs are compressed until a limit switch is hit, cutting off water flow and signaling that the bottles have been filled. In our evaluation, the process was deemed capable of filling six bottles in under 40s, thus reaching every engineering metric developed.