PRODUCT DESIGN, MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, PROTOTYPING,

Apple POGO Slicer.

When we first ventured to offer product development way back in 1990, the catch 22 was that to get work developing products you needed to show evidence of being able to do just that. With this in mind we created demonstration projects as a vehicle to illustrate our abilities and the results.

The results attracted new clients and more work.Thirty years on and with a rich experience in developing, designing and engineering successful new products, we want to show potential clients the unique advantage we bring to a project. Apple Pogo is a product born of development work on food preparation utensils and gadgets.

With the market saturated with low cost conventional kitchen utensils, tools and gadgets, we looked for an unusual new product to serve as a demonstration of thinking out-of-the-box.

Cutting apples in half is easy with a sharp knife, cutting with a die-cutter into 8 or 10 bite-size wedges makes for great healthy snacking.

To make a French apple tart however, apples need to be cut into thin uniform wedges, free of core and seeds.
Even with good knife skills, cutting uniform radial slices is slow and tricky.
A mandolin goes some way to cutting uniform radial segments, but it means risking fingers against sharp steel.

To begin, we listed the must-have features and operations to achieve the desired result; Simple placing of the apple in or on the gadget.

The style of cut for the best results.
Safety of the blade.
Easy, smooth cutting action.
Setting the thickness of the slices.
Comfortable ergonomics and easy work-flow.
Removal and disposal of the apple core.
Cleaning and maintaining the unit.
A simple, reliable mechanism.
Robust, simple, low cost construction.
Ease of use and storage.

Do we move the blade around the apple, or rotate the apple to repeat the slicing action?
Rotating the apple made the most sense, but it wasn’t without complications;

The blade needs to be locked into a linear cutting motion until withdrawn from the apple, then the apple is turned a precise increment before cutting again.
This led to the design of a novel escapement mechanism with carefully balanced springs to control the sequence of movements.

First the mechanism is locked with a momentary button so that the apple can be skewered on a central spike.
Additional locating spikes stop the apple turning on the central spike so that it can be accurately driven round.
A removable cap covers the sharp spike, securing the apple at the right height and providing the foot on which the pogo dances.

More than one slice thickness?
Teeth in the mechanism allow 44 rotational increments in one complete rotation.
A simple adjustment makes the apple rotate through 1 or 2 increments at a time, cutting 44 thin or 22 thick segments.
Push downward against the spring to cut each apple segment, then raise the blade, rotating the apple in readiness for the next cut….. repeat.

All that is left on the spike is the apple core. Just slide it off and skewer another apple. Apple Pogo is born!

Patent in progress

If you are interested in a unique advantage for your products or a venture with Apple Pogo, let's start with a chat.

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