Outcome

I designed this reusable cup handle to hold a tea bag after it has been steeped for the appropriate amount of time. Oversteeping a tea bag leads to bitter tea, and nobody wants that. 

I was inspired by my own experience with tea. I've spent many hours in the library studying with a cup of hot tea, and too often I've forgotten or found it too inconvenient to remove the tea bag after its proper brewing time.

For this project, I wanted to focus on functionality. This design serves to replace both the cardboard paper sleeve that comes with hot beverages as well as perhaps a napkin or saucer to hold the tea bag after it has finished brewing.

I chose to not use heat guns with acrylic based on my past experience working with heat forming acrylic. I've found it difficult to reliably make the same shapes and angles or to achieve precision even with the same design and method. Since I knew I would be making multiple prototypes, I really wanted to focus on refining my design rather than building my acrylic heat-forming skills or relying on luck. 

Below is the mood board that I created before beginning any designs or prototyping. My favorite kind of tea is earl gray, which serves as the main source of inspiration for the mood board. 

Derived a basic slope formula to calculate the dimensions of the layers of acrylic that I would need. 

The prototypes that led to the final version, right to left. The first prototype was made with binder board and featured a square handle. The next two are made of clear acrylic and tested out different sizes of the circular handle. The final version is made of gray tinted acrylic. 

First prototype. The square handle was too narrow to fit the tea bag inside, and not very comfortable to hold. However, I really liked the feel and aesthetic of the binder board and would probably choose that as the material if I wasn't restricted to acrylic. The binder board fits in well with the color themes in my mood board, and the natural texture suits the sense of warmth that I want to convey.

Second prototype. This circular handle was too small to fit the tea bag.

Third prototype. This is pretty much the final design, but I wanted to check how it looked before making final cuts with the gray acrylic.

Final version in use with my favorite kind of tea- earl gray. 

Real-life usage!

Below are some pictures of early models/concepts of other ideas. I wasn't very excited about any of these, since they didn't really add the level of functionality that I wanted.