kSafe Pro

kSafe Pro is a time-locked and task-locked container which help users avoid temptation. Users can set time or set task on the dedicated mobile app and unlock the container when the locking time is up and the task is completed. For example, locking the container for 5 hours, jogging for 2 miles or check-in at gym for 1 hour.

How kSafe Pro works is that the users put their “temptation” such as snacks, TV remote, game controller or tablet in the container and set their own task or locking time on the designated mobile app. The mobile app will send a signal to the container through Bluetooth and drive the locking mechanism to lock the container. Until the task is completed or the locking time is up, the container will not be unlocked without breaking the container to get the “temptation” out. It helps people focus on their work in a period of time or motivate people to work out to keep themselves healthy.

In Spring 2015, I worked on the mechanical design of this product during my first internship at a startup company in San Diego. Although I had had different jobs before, this was my first time preforming engineering work in a work place. My job was to design the locking mechanism and the constraints of all the parts of the product for plastic injection molding by CAD software. When the design of the product was nearly finished, my team started prototyping and testing. Even though I had some experience with 3-D printing while prototyping some small components like the gears of the locking mechanism by our own 3-D printer, we decided to send our design files to a 3-D printing company to have it precisely printed out. After that, we listed out all the areas which could fail by doing repetitive testing of the locking mechanism under different temperature conditions, drop testing the product, and testing of the strength each component by attempting to open the locked container in different ways and with different types of tools. Before the internship ended in the end of July, the design was ready for manufacturing.

Unexpectedly, my supervisor gave me a lot of freedom and authority on the design which I did not think other internship could have provided. Actually, this high level of freedom made me nervous because I was only an undergraduate student and this product was worth a lot of money which I had never imagined. Fortunately, my supervisor was very nice and willing to discuss with me in every step of the project. He gave me so much support and advice about the work I had done. Therefore, I felt more confident to bring up more idea to the design. I had learned so much about work attitude and ethical duty of an engineer while working with my supervisor. On the other hand, I needed to learn by myself in most of the time in this internship since I had not designed those components from stretch by myself such as gears and some customized components. When I worked on class projects, the design files of most of the components for the projects were provided by the professors and TAs. All I needed to do was to choose the right file for myself. However, at this time, I was not fed by the professors and TAs and I needed to hunt and feed myself. It was a big challenge for me. Just like a caged animal cannot be freed to the nature, they cannot survive because they did not grow up with the hunting skills and the ecology of the natural environment. This time I needed to learn those skills all by myself by doing research about product design and general guidelines for manufacturing using Google and materials in library. After spending a lot of time on the research, I learned more about manufacturing and the reasons behind every particular design element of the products. This new area fascinated me, so I started studying the mechanism and design ideas of all the objects I had been using in my daily life. This really attracted me to product design and manufacturing. I also learned how to teach myself and the importance of engaging in advanced studies in my field. Besides this, it was also a very hard time for me because I also had school work to handle other than internship. In that quarter, I had been spreading myself too thin and did not really balance well with the internship and school work. The only way to solve this was to learn how to work efficiently and set deadline for each tasks. Even though I did not go through the manufacturing process to see the product coming out on the market, I was still very thankful to have this opportunity to gain practical working experience to apply what I had learned in college in a work place. Moreover, it enhanced my interest in manufacturing and I had been clearer about my future goal.

Website: http://www.getksafe.com/