Design of an orbital shaker for future laboratory use

The aim of this project is to redesign an orbital shaker to improve its flexibility of use in laboratory environments with increasingly stricter cleaning regulations and open up more future possibilities for integration with digital journals and reporting. Preliminary research is done by means of reverse engineering three different competitor products using the Product Evolution method to get acquainted with shakers and their technicalities, resulting in a qualitative assessment of all three competitor designs which, together with the company goals, set up the requirement specification for this new product. Designing the shaker starts with a brainstorm session with laboratory technicians from different disciplines. Three different concepts were presented to the company with a distinctly different subassemblies in the areas of controller, mechanism, and casing. All concepts are evaluated both qualitatively as well as quantitively. From these concepts, a direction was selected and a final design and accompanying CAD model were created. In tandem with the creation of the final design, a prototype was designed and manufactured as well. The prototype was built to reflect the requirements of the final product as close as possible, so that the company can decide on future development of this product as informed as possible.