Just for fun, I thought I'd bring you up to speed on where I am in developing the ice cream scoop prototype. You'll remember that I did four quick and dirty prototypes that I tested on video last week, And they're these four shown here. And two of them showed some promise. The first was the, what you might call the swoop scoop, which was, which is shown here. And the main idea was that, by angling the handle backward, you could push down on the handle in order to cut out an arc, and use the pushing force to do the scooping, And that was somewhat promising. The other approach that was somewhat promising was the angled scoop. And you'll remember that I had started out by trying to create a handle that could pivot, and so that the scoop could rotate backwards in a way that I could pull on it. And that's the silver prototype here. But that in trying to make that prototype, I made an error in the angle of that bevel, in the orientation of that angle through the bevel. And ended up discovering that in fact there might be a configuration of that scoop relative to the handle that would be pretty nice. And so that's shown here, The idea being that the scoop is angled downward, with respect to the handle, so that you could hold the handle more horizontally and scoop out somewhat, in a sideways action. So I did some more work on that basic idea, which I thought was pretty encouraging. And I made some measurements, and I held some grips, And I measured some angles and distances in order to identify what would really be the right angle or the optimal angle to give you the best chance of being able to scoop while holding the handle horizontally. And I came up with this angled prototype that is roughly comparable to the swoop scoop, in terms of its level of refinement, but which orients the handle roughly 90 degrees or somewhat perpendicular to the direction of the scoop. And so what I ended up with are two proof of concept prototypes, One with the angled scoop and one, the, what I've been calling swoop scoop. And I took those two prototypes, which are very similar in their level of refinement and I gave them to my son, Again, to see how he liked them and to see how they stacked up relative to the existing best, best products, Or at least the one I think is the best, which is the xylus scoop. And so what I'm going to show you now is some video. It gives some insights into how those scoops perform, And, and he has some very useful feedback, Which, at the end of this video, I'll circle back and indicate what my thoughts are on that. Okay, Nate, just try the different scoops. Alright. How hard is that ice cream? Really, really hard. Really hard? Okay. . Now, tell me what you're thinking. The angle on this one could be a little better, but it's easy to get leverage. The ice cream's kind of hard, and doesn't really cling to itself. So it just, like, separated, and not really scoopable. It kind of just breaks off. But this one works pretty well. . . And this one, it's good for the concept, but the angle it's at, It's hard to actually, when you push, it's hard to actually lift up, cuz at this point, to get it even up, you have to bend your wrist farther back. And, you know, it should go. And now I'm trying to scoop it up at the bottom. It's not working. . So, it might be better in a full container. Yeah. Probably better in a full container. But this one, to get it liftable, you have to go back to, just to get it horizontal. Yeah. Unless you went, like. No, it still looks just, it's, pretty much, any way you hold it, it's not going to be able to lift that. . . This one works pretty well. You like that? Yeah. You could fix the angle though, But. Why don't you try that other container as well? That's a full container. Alright. To be honest though, I think it might just be the head of this one. But this one scoops the best. But it doesn't necessarily feel the most comfortable. So that head, it works really well. Scoops really well. Yeah, this ice cream's softer. And this scoop works pretty, scoop works pretty, pretty well. . This head cuts way better, but not necessarily that the h- position. . . This one gets pretty good leverage. It's just still awkward getting it out of the container, but yeah. . But yeah, it works pretty well. Okay. So, between the two prototypes, hold those out. Which of those do you think you'd prefer? . This one, just because, it feels more natural scooping ice-cream. This one I feel like it's too much, I-, you've, you have to focus too much to get the ice-cream, to pull. . S-, scoop a little bit more with that one you like. . . Okay, thanks. I don't know about you, but here are my insights from watching that video and from interacting with my son with those scoops. First of all, he really likes the Xylus scoop head, and I think it's going to be quite hard to improve on that, and so, I'm inclined to borrow as much of that geometry and approach as I can, because it really does seem to work very well. The second insight I took away is that the swoop scoop clearly has some interference issues, especially related to fairly deep, trying to access fairly deep cartons, and so I'm inclined to consider straightening that handle out a little bit, or possibly to abandoning the concept all together, because of those interference issues. The angled scoop shows quite a lot of promise. He seems to like it. It seems to work well. And my sense is that with some work on the scoop geometry itself it's quite viable. So that's probably the most promising direction. I have to say though, emotionally I'm somewhat attached to the swoop scoop and I'm having a hard time letting it go and I'm thinking I might do some further refinement to see whether I can address some of its weaknesses.
