This is it! My final year of Product Design Engineering!

So what have I chosen to look at? A lot of people might think of this as a weird choice but I’m looking at the world of sports nutrition – More specifically the problem with protein shakers.

When most people think of protein shakes they think of big burly men that spend all their time at the gym bodybuilding. In some respects that is where the roots of it lie but more and more regular people are drinking protein shakes after the gym – The reason? Protein helps the muscles recover and heal faster after a heavy workout and reduces injury. Some people drink protein shakes as a meal replacement to help them loose weight. Solid food takes longer to digest, drinking protein shakes straight after the gym means your muscles start to recover quicker.

So, what is wrong with protein shakers? Even though more and more products are out there… they don’t mix very well. Protein powder is expensive and you’d want to have most of it inside you, not in the crevices in the bottle. They smell, the choice of material has never been ideal – plastic picks up odour and stains. They do not seal, I’ve heard so many stories of people covering themselves in shake, most people want to be confident that they can leave it in their bag or on the car seat and it won’t leak everywhere. Measurements, hard to see and read, the kitchenware industry has got this right? Is it so different? Cleaning with big hands, ergonomics haven’t been thought of at all.

How can I prove it? Well I’m going to do tests for mix-ability and pour-ability, and I will review each shaker and put them up online. I’m going to take in account the good and bad points of each and design my own.

These are the products I’m going to test out soon.