I did an internship at an ice-cream company called ‘Professor Grunschnabel’.
There I designed and engineered six ice-cycles. With these ice-cycles children can make their own ice-cream.
They first mix some fruit and juice and put that in a stainless container. This container is then placed inside an bigger container in which water, ice-cubes and salt is placed.
When shaking the container, a chemical reaction takes place with the salt and the ice (it lowers its freezing point) and therefore the water becomes -20°C (-4°F).
This makes the fruits and juice inside the small container freeze quickly and become a nice sorbet.
For the shaking part the ice-cycles were engineered.
The ice-cycles are still an enormous success. They have been on the famous ‘Parade Festival’ in Den Haag, Utrecht and Amsterdam and are now most of the time rented by companies for PR stunts.
During this internship I learned what it takes to be a freelance designer. Having meetings with the client, organizing a brainstorm session, generating concepts, detailing and sourcing for materials to be able to create a fully functional prototype.
After some user tests I improved the design and build five more ice-cycles.
The building part was also very interesting, working with steel, learning how to weld, grinding and assembling a small series product.
Al of this in a metal workshop between professional metal workers.