Undergraduate Capstone: Laminar Flow Radial Flow Sink

~Description In Progress~

Lifsink was an idea created after brainstorming alternative luxurious counterparts of common everyday household devices that everyone uses. By providing both an eye-catching design and a unique functionality, this sink fills a unique niche into the market that has yet to be fully tapped into. After recent patent searching, no applicable patents were found demonstrating the idea proposed for this project. To accomplish our goals, we will be utilizing fountain designs for underlying mathematical and structural inspiration.

Due to the high barriers of entry into the marketplace, the best chance of entering the market would involve developing a partnership with one of the top 4 major players in the sink and faucet industry. The companies that hold the most market share include Kohler, American Standard, Moen, and Delta. Through selling the IP, we would then be able to profit from royalties were we anticipate negotiating 8% of the market value price. When looking at the average high end luxury sink price developed by Kohler, we see a value of around $3250 for just the sink alone. Because we have a 2-in-1 design along with our technological integration, we can see our sink possibly being priced around this range if not higher. This would be dependent on the acquiring company. Lifsink would mostly cater to those willing to spend a large amount of money during bathroom renovations, early adopters of new technology, and the casino/hotel industry that oftentimes have an incentive to upgrade and showcase interesting bathroom designs for their businesses. As for continuation, we have discussed that if we were to win any prize money during the competition, we’d be willing to go 50/50 on filing a patent and trademark protections on our design.

Design Objectives and Constraints

Lifsink will function as an aesthetically pleasing faucetless sink which provides an unobstructed hand and face washing experience by converging several laminar flow streams to the center of the sink basin. Besides the aesthetics and practicality aspect of the sink from its eye-catching and intuitive high-tech design, hygiene is another important objective regarding the project’s capabilities.

The sink will function using a touch-free user interface, which will control aspects such as turning on/off the sink, and temperature adjustments. With technology being so heavily integrated into the functionality of the product, waterproofing the sensors as well as other sensitive technological components was considered of most importance. Laminar flow nozzles that will be used to achieve the desired flow must be designed to be compact and shaped properly to fit under the sink countertop.

One important aspect considered when designing this product was standardization. The plumbing industry is highly standardized when examining current fittings, pipes, and other pieces in common sinks. To make the transition to our product as painless as possible for customers and for future repair work, meeting current standards and dimensions was considered an important constraint in design planning.