Within a glossy black box, covering it is like any other product a straw. Defined by its developers as Suction Tube for Reverse Axial Withdrawal, designed to mix the black-and-tan-esque strata of McDonald’s new dual-layer Chocolate Shamrock Shake in perfect proportion.
“My first reaction was, that doesn’t seem too hard. We could have a double straw–one longer, one shorter. No problem,” says Seth Newburg, principal engineer, and managing partner at NK Labs, which teamed up with JACE Design on the STRAW
“A lot of designs we came up with would work well when the shake was full, or might work when the shake was empty, but in a lot of situations, we found if we didn’t get the diameters just right, we’d end up drawing in air, or the first few sips would be good, but you had to wait a minute for the straw to be recharged,” Newburg says.
The breakthrough happened in a whiteboarding session. “One of our team members said, ‘How about we change this? Instead of drinking the bottom up, we drink from the top down.’ They drew a J-shaped straw.”
The end of the J would suck in a shake, as would two large holes on its tip, allowing you to get the mix you want. But as the shake dipped below the J holes, those openings wouldn’t start sucking in air as a straight straw with holes would. Instead, you could continue sucking because of a vital third hole, on the bottom of the straw. As long as there’s shake coming through the bottom, you close off the pressure system to the tip of the J.
The team from NK Labs and JACE, with backgrounds in electrical and aerospace engineering, test the axial flow of the STRAW, which stands for Suction Tube for Reverse Axial Withdrawal.
But did they actually succeed? “
“My first reaction was, that doesn’t seem too hard. We could have a double straw–one longer, one shorter. No problem,” says Seth Newburg, principal engineer, and managing partner at NK Labs, which teamed up with JACE Design on the STRAW
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| STRAW |
The STRAW resembles saxophone or a fish hook.
“A lot of designs we came up with would work well when the shake was full, or might work when the shake was empty, but in a lot of situations, we found if we didn’t get the diameters just right, we’d end up drawing in air, or the first few sips would be good, but you had to wait a minute for the straw to be recharged,” Newburg says.
The breakthrough happened in a whiteboarding session. “One of our team members said, ‘How about we change this? Instead of drinking the bottom up, we drink from the top down.’ They drew a J-shaped straw.”
The end of the J would suck in a shake, as would two large holes on its tip, allowing you to get the mix you want. But as the shake dipped below the J holes, those openings wouldn’t start sucking in air as a straight straw with holes would. Instead, you could continue sucking because of a vital third hole, on the bottom of the straw. As long as there’s shake coming through the bottom, you close off the pressure system to the tip of the J.
The team from NK Labs and JACE, with backgrounds in electrical and aerospace engineering, test the axial flow of the STRAW, which stands for Suction Tube for Reverse Axial Withdrawal.
But did they actually succeed? “
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