Snack Palette is a new consumer product that is now available on the market and for sale on the website http://www.snackpalette.com/. It is a disposable/recyclable plate for use at picnics, parties or any other activity so that the holder can hold food and drink in one hand. The Snack Palette is a plate and holder for a cup, fork and napkin all in one and can be used in the left or right hand.



Snack Palette inventor Duane Ebesu started the product development process working with a sculptor to create a clay model of the product. With that model in hand, he contacted ProtoCAM to create the prototype. Ebesu had worked with ProtoCAM on another project and liked their “attention to detail” and “no hassle, never a problem” customer service approach.

ProtoCAM had the clay model scanned to generate the initial 3D CAD representation of the product. ProtoCAM plastics engineer and rapid prototyping analyst Ed Graham worked with Ebesu to understand that the Snack Palette would be manufactured in the future in large quantities using plastic thermoforming. Thermoforming was a better choice for the Snack Palette as it would be less costly to manufacture in the long run than injection molding.

With that in mind, Graham helped provide some design suggestions related to the future manufacturing of the product, so that the thickness of the product would be sufficient to be thermoformed. With these design for manufacturability suggestions in place, ProtoCAM produced the prototype using stereolithography (SLA).

Ebesu comments, “I chose ProtoCAM to do the rapid prototyping because I knew they had a clear understanding of what was needed to get the job done.”

Snack Palette and all its accessories are available online at http://www.snackpalette.com/.

Labels: plastics engineering, product development, rapid prototyping, SLA prototype, stereolithography