That was easier.
I’m Dan and I’ve been designing
kitchen gadgets for 40 years.
I’m gonna test some gadgets designed back in the day
and see if I can find a way to make them better.
I’d come out wider
so there’s larger surface area to push down on.
Add a shape to this so that I am pushing vertically.
And it swings down to here.
These are the products I am going to test.
Ice Pet, Miracle French fry cutter,
Bean-X, Egg Slicer, Juice-o-mat.
[upbeat music]
Ice Pet.
Its purpose in life is to turn ice
into snow cone-like material, or keep you company as a pet.
It’s kind of friendly-looking, could be the colors.
Let’s see how effective it is.
This requires a disc of ice to use it.
I am going to put it in place,
push hard, and start grinding.
[ice screeching]
And that’s pretty good,
I’m not even halfway through the ice.
Now I could keep going,
but I’m too anxious to eat a snow cone.
And I am going to try boppin’ blue raspberry.
And it’s definitely blue, like all good raspberries.
Let’s go.
The ice texture is actually
pretty good snow cone consistency.
I would say that this gives the guy on 137th Street
a run for his money.
Let’s see how the Ice Pet compares
to a more modern ice cube shaver.
[jaunty music]
I’m liking it.
Maybe a little less fun than the Ice Pet.
It’s definitely a lot less pet-like.
To compensate, the cherry is making me cheery.
In terms of effectiveness, on a scale of one to five,
I’d give it a four and a half.
I think it was pretty effective.
It was a lot more consistent in the way it scraped.
It was fun to watch the ice come out of this one.
The downside is you’re gonna have to have discs of ice,
not just ice cubes out of your ice cube tray.
So what you may wanna do is keep a couple of discs
in your freezer at all time for that moment when you say,
I need a snow cone and I need it now.
It’s time for the left-handed oil test.
By making my non-dominant hand slippery,
it’s gonna highlight any deficiencies
or areas for improvement.
It’s not the only way to do it,
but it’s a fairly quick evaluation.
Let’s try to lift the ice.
No, look at that, I can’t.
Let’s get the disc into place.
Both hands are slippery,
but I’m gonna be favoring my left hand in doing this.
I’m gonna brace it with my right hand.
And let’s start grinding.
[ice screeching]
Yeah, that’s kind of fun.
It looks like my left hand is doing a lot more movement,
but I’m actually applying a lot more pressure
with my right hand to keep this stable.
Let’s fill.
And flavor-wise, loony lemon-lime.
Nothing artificial at all in this flavor.
Let’s give it a shot.
Like I said before, the texture’s pretty good.
How can you complain when you’re eating a snow cone?
In terms of usability, I would give the Ice Pet,
again, I’m kind of in a good mood,
I think because I just ate a few snow cones.
Let’s give it a four out of five.
There’s a little bit of a physical struggle using it.
I think you would like it if you had it
and you had your technique figured out.
So let’s think about a redesign.
I think there are a couple of things
I would suggest in a redesign.
Because it’s a little bit unstable without the suction cup,
I would assume that the suction cup is not gonna be
dependable for a lot of surfaces for a lot of people.
So rather than have a circle here,
I would turn this base into an oval,
extend it out here a bit, out here a bit.
Because it’s unstable in this direction.
And the wider you go in that direction with the base,
the more stable it’s gonna be,
the less work you’re gonna have to use
for the hand that’s not on the crank.
This handle is a little skinny
and a little hard to control.
So instead of a handle that looks like this,
I’d come out wider so there’s larger surface area
to push down on.
The crank itself, I don’t have any complaints with.
I think that’s okay.
But what I would suggest,
because this device is dependent on
that specifically molded disc of ice,
I would provide an insert that takes regular ice cubes.
‘Cause not everybody wants to wait a few hours
for their snow cones.
It’s gonna be tragedy in the kitchen.
So what I would do is think about an insert in here.
I would think about providing a disc
with four holes in the back to mate with those pins,
but maybe with four divisions that would accept
standard square ice cubes, or half round ice cubes.
Maybe that would even take two inserts.
That way, no one is left out.
I think a buy rating for the Ice Pet,
I would give it a 4 out of 5.
All in all, with the Ice Pet,
I hope it follows me home.
Come on, [clapping] this way.
Come on!
Miracle French fry cutter.
What it says is, cuts 25 pieces in one stroke.
So this is pretty rustic looking.
Potato goes in here, handle goes down,
French fries come out this side.
Let’s see how effective it is.
So potato in.
And, yeah.
Okay, that worked, but the motion was a little jerky.
I do have French fries at the end.
It didn’t feel that good.
It felt a little awkward the way
it kind of flew out at the end.
And also how the way my hand jammed down.
Let’s try this one.
Boy, you really have to put a lot of body weight into this.
Well we’re using at least one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight of these blades, to slice.
So the pressure is gonna be eight times as much pressure
as you would need to cut with one blade.
And I’m trying to make so many French fries at once
that it does take a whole lot of effort.
I think I got 17 things that I would call fries.
But no, you’re not gonna get 25 French fries
unless you have a perfectly square potato.
And those are difficult to find.
Let’s see how the Miracle French fry cutter
compares to a standard French mandolin.
Mandolin’s are a little dangerous.
You could see these blades sticking out
and they’re a little sharp.
So I’m gonna put a towel on top here
just to keep myself a little bit safer.
[jaunty music]
So, I have a strong sense of self-preservation,
I stopped halfway through.
This is what I got for French fries.
I still have two halves of potatoes leftover.
But they look okay.
On a scale of one to five in terms of effectiveness,
I would give this a one.
It’s a miracle that I didn’t break my arm.
I’m gonna try this again,
but with a slippery non-dominant hand,
and see what I can reveal about its design.
I’m a little skeptical
because this isn’t working for a number of reasons.
See, right away,
I’m not getting any downward pressure.
I’ve gotta push sideways on this to get leverage.
That’s not gonna work.
This is not a left or right-handed thing,
or even a slippery hand thing.
This is just pure mechanics.
Just take two, whoa.
So no, I am not a fan.
On a one to five scale, zero.
And I’m just not liking it.
It’s just not usable, it’s not pleasant.
It is low, low, low on the usability scale.
Let’s think about a redesign.
And what I would do is rethink this thing significantly.
Instead of using a lever mechanism,
I would try to see if I could use a screw mechanism.
With a screw mechanism,
we can increase that two to one ratio significantly,
maybe five to one, six to one, maybe even 10 to one,
depending on the thread of the screw.
Put a nice big handle on here.
Probably be something that hangs off the table
so you can get some action going in terms of cranking.
And it’s gonna go a little slower,
but it’s gonna feel a whole lot better,
it’s gonna be a lot more controllable.
It’s not gonna suddenly release
where your hand slams down on the table.
There could be other ways to make a lever mechanism
that would do something along the same lines.
But one of the things I would try is a screw mechanism.
In terms of a buy rating, I would give
the Miracle French fry cutter a zero out a five.
I could not recommend this to anyone.
Spud dud.
Bean-X.
Its purpose in life is to stem,
string, and slice a string bean.
So the first step is to slice the end of the string bean.
The second step is the pull the string bean through.
Let’s see how effective it is.
I’m gonna do step one, which is slice off the ends.
Second step is to feed the string bean through.
What I should have is string beans
that are skinnier than when I started.
It definitely sliced the string bean.
And it’s kind of fun.
This blade, I’m sure is pretty sharp.
I would caution that you
try to keep your fingers away from this blade.
But the ability to just swipe and cut off
the tip of the string bean works better
than I would have thought.
Not only are my string beans skinnier,
I have three times as many as when I started.
Let’s see how the Bean-X
compares to using a regular old knife.
[jaunty music]
I think I would, at one point,
decide that I’m happy with my string beans just as they are.
Plus, the knife is not nearly as much fun as the Bean-X.
In terms of effectiveness, on a scale of one to five,
I’m gonna give Bean-X a five.
I kind of like it, it could take some time,
but I think it does what it promised to do.
Now I’m gonna try Bean-X with the left-handed oil test.
Slice off the tips, pull this through.
It’s not horrible.
And it is what it is.
It’s rather a crude instrument.
But lefty or righty,
I don’t see anything really overly revealing itself.
In terms of usability,
I would give Bean-X a four out of five.
It takes a little bit of work to feed the string bean in,
but I think it does what it promises to do.
And it does it better than tools
that you already have in your kitchen.
Let’s talk about a redesign.
One of the things I would do right out of the box,
give it a rather substantial,
bright orange or bright yellow safety cap.
And write Bean-X on it
so you know what it is when it ends up in your junk drawer.
I think also, we tended to get a little stuck
with this opening up, there’s no good way to pull this down.
So I would give a bit of a shape to this bottom part,
so that it’s gonna be that much easier to pull it down
when you need to pull it down.
One thing I would look at is opening up this entrance port
for the string bean,
maybe giving it a bit of a bigger target.
So then when you start to feed
the string bean in it self-centers.
This thing actually is a little bit hard to control.
It’s just a little too skinny,
with a slippery hand it’s a little too slippery.
I would fatten this guy up.
I would at least give that some consideration,
is there a way to make this thing a little more stable?
In terms of a buy rating,
I’m giving Bean-X a five out of five.
Be careful about that blade, it’s probably pretty sharp.
But if you really feel like your string beans
are a little too fat, I would say Bean-X is the way to go.
Just don’t get Bean-X confused with Beano,
that’s a whole different thing.
Egg Slicer.
It’s purpose in life is to slice an egg
into six perfect wedges.
Let’s see how effective it is.
I am going to place the first one in,
I’m gonna do it pointy side up.
Why do eggs have a pointy side?
Don’t ask me, ask the chicken.
Let’s give it a squeeze.
And yeah, no big surprise.
It sliced pretty well, all slices are even.
Let’s do a second one.
But so far so good.
I now have 12 evenly sliced egg wedges.
Let’s see how they taste.
Very egg-like.
Let’s see how that compares with slicing an egg
with a regular old kitchen knife.
[jaunty music]
That was a little clumsy, definitely not evenly cut slices.
Aside from aesthetics,
I would say it tastes the same, shocking.
In terms of effectiveness, on a scale of one to five,
I would give the Egg Slicer a five.
I think it may encourage me to eat more eggs.
Is that a good thing?
Not sure.
But it is kind of fun to use.
Time for the left-handed oil test.
This has a lock on it.
Make sure I can unlock it.
Okay, we’re open.
And yeah, I can feel already a little lack of control.
And it’s okay.
Something else I notice, is that I am squeezing
a little more than I would want to.
In other words, if this handle was a little thicker,
I think I’d be a little better off.
It did slice the eggs into equal slices.
It wasn’t a whole lot of effort.
Taste them, sure.
Oh yeah, it tastes better.
Just kidding.
Let’s give it a four out of five for usability today.
It does what it’s supposed to do.
It’s pretty easy to clean.
I think we’re okay.
Let’s see how I would redesign this,
or at least make some improvements.
One thing I would suggest is having this come out
a little further away.
And it doesn’t have to be this convex shape,
it could be any shape.
It could be a concave shape here.
Really anything.
Because what I notice is,
as you’re squeezing it to the very end,
it requires a pretty tight fist grip.
Better if you finish in a little more of a neutral position.
What that means is this distance to this distance,
in its fully closed state, would just be a little bit wider.
Give this a base so that
when you’re using it it would stand.
But I would give this either some sort of wide wing,
or a step, or a little bit of,
add a little bit to this base.
So that you can use this one-handed.
That’s going to help people who may not have use,
or full use of a second hand.
But also I think it’s just gonna be easier with two hands
if this thing is just a little more stable,
sitting on the table.
In terms of a buy rating,
I would give the Egg Slicer a four out of five.
I do think it could be a bit better,
but I wouldn’t back off of it.
I know you’ve been slicing eggs since the ’60s.
Just keep at it.
Juice-o-mat.
Its purpose in life is to juice citrus
with the push of a lever.
Let’s see how effective it is.
Start by cutting an orange in half.
Whoa, a blood orange.
Pull the juicer back into place.
Place the glass.
Center the orange.
And let’s give it a squeeze.
I want to put more pressure on it,
so I’m gonna try both hands.
It did okay for the center.
I’m just not that thrilled about it
missing some of the edges.
Let’s go for the other half.
Start the squeeze.
Give it a press.
I’ve got some juice, but let’s see how well…
It’s the same.
I think I did better in the center of this orange
than I did on the edges.
The orange juice itself, hmm,
well that’s one orange worth.
Again, I think that’s a little bit less
than I would’ve expected.
Ooh, bloody good.
Let’s see how the Juice-o-mat compares to a modern juicer.
And this surprisingly is a modern juicer.
[jaunty music]
That is a full orange worth of juice.
And it’s not nearly as much as I would’ve thought.
Think if I was given the choice between this
and the Juice-o-mat, I think I would go onto eBay
and look for a Juice-o-mat.
In terms of effectiveness,
I would give the Juice-o-mat a 3.5 out of five.
Why?
Because I did the math and I think I got
about 70% of juice out of that orange.
And that’s what 3.5 would give us.
Now I’m gonna give the Juice-o-mat
the left-handed oil test.
Get half an orange.
Position the orange.
So I’m just gonna give a slippery left-hand a push.
And I do feel it’s a little less stable,
but I’m actually squeezing this with my fingers
so that my hand doesn’t slip out that way.
If I went just like that, yeah slippery hands,
I would just be off the lever.
Yeah, maybe ’cause my left hand’s a bit weaker,
I’m just not squeezing this orange,
this orange half as much as I did previously.
In terms of usability,
I would give this a two out of five.
There could’ve been something done mechanically
that would give more advantage.
I also think that the shape of this internal cone
is not really working to get all the juice
out of this orange half.
Let’s see how I would redesign this.
Let’s look at the inner mechanism first.
And I’m having a little trouble disassembling this.
Can I get this out?
Whoa, there it goes.
I think first, I will look at this internal cone
and question why is it a cone when an orange is a dome.
This pretty much accounts for why
we’re not getting all the juice out of the orange.
One thing to look at is the shape of this internal piece.
And instead of looking like this,
I would think it would want to look a little more dome-like,
so I would curve this up.
There could be some really tricky way to make this adjust
to the thing that you are squeezing.
Can’t think of it right off hand, but there could be.
If not, I would at least make this a dome, not a cone.
And I would provide a couple of different inserts.
Something else I would look at is the shape of this lever.
As mentioned, when I was pushing this
with the slippery hands,
my hand was just slipping right off.
What I would do is add a shape to this
so that when it’s at its lowest point,
I am pushing vertically against the horizontal surface.
I would guess what’s in here is a wheel,
just a pretty standard looking gear.
I would possibly think about an oval gear.
And I’d really have to work this out
so that the geometry works.
But this is kind of the direction I would think about.
A gear here so that it would give less leverage up top
where I don’t need it, more leverage as I go down.
This may not be the way to do it,
but at least it’s a beginning of a thought.
In terms of a buy rating,
I would give the Juice-o-mat a one out of five.
Sorry Juice-o-mat, but I didn’t get the amount of juice,
there was too much leftover in the orange.
I think there are better alternatives.
It’s kind of cute.
If you wanna put it up on a shelf,
it’s kind of decorative.
Surprisingly, some of the vintage gadgets
were working better than some of the newer designed gadgets.
If you’re looking to design a new product,
look at past history, go through old catalogs,
or old patents, because you may get inspired.
So it really is good food for thought
when you’re designing products.
Today was a day of highs and lows.
The high for me though, was Ice Pet.
I thought it was very showy, it was very visual.
I could picture it being fun in the kitchen.
You may have to pre-mold some of those ice discs,
but if you have those ready to go, this could be a fun day.
Good boy, good boy.
[upbeat music]
