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Phase: Feedback

The Revolverator

An eco-friendly refrigerator, with LED lights, ant-bacterial wall-lining, and REVOLVING SHELVES, made to lessen food waste.

Photo of Gina
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The front view The front view
The interior view (depicted without a door) The interior view (depicted without a door)

The Revolverator is designed to bring the food that needs to be eaten first right to your face! The three shelves rotate in the upwards direction (based on the adjustable rotation time, controlled by a small panel in the top right corner), bringing the food that has been in the fridge the longest directly to your attention while allowing you to add food to the lower shelf which is brought forward in the rotation.

It has an impressive interior, with anti-bacterial wall lining, LED lights, three shelves with small barriers (to prevent objects from falling), one drawer, and four adjustable basket shelves on the inside of the door. In addition, it is equipped with adjustable temperature, a drawer freezer with a shelf, and is available in white, black, and stainless steel.

Ideally, the Revolverator would be available in 18, 22, 26, 30 cubic feet (some of the average size of refrigerators) but this would depend on manufacturers and marketers opinion of sales and productivity. 

Some people voiced the three shelves is not a lot of storage space! But thats a ley aspect of the Revolverator's ability to prevent food waste. Less space in the fridge will encourage owners to buy less groceries and produce while their Revolverator is already full!

The Revolverator is easy for all ages to use and a great addition to any home!

What early, lightweight experiment might you try out in your own community to find out if the idea will meet your expectations?

In order to determine if the idea will meet OpenIDEO's expectations, I would reach out to a manufacturers who can provide me with the engineering and design expertise to build model Revolverators and install them in a community (in voluntary households) for a controlled amount of time, and measure the change in food waste the trial households experience. This way, it could be determined if the Revolverator reduces the amount of food is wasted from its time spent in the fridge.

What skills, input or guidance from the OpenIDEO community would be most helpful in building out or refining your idea?

The Revolverator needs your help! As someone who has no experience in engineering or design, particularly that of a refrigerator, I am unsure of how to make something revolve or what is required to design and produce a refrigerator. I am in search of someone in our community who can impart their expertise or skills on my design idea.

Tell us about your work experience:

I am a senior in high school currently enrolled in AP Biology. I have enrolled myself in Conceptual Physics, Honors Biology, and Honors Chemistry over the course of my high school career and I became presented with this opportunity through my AP Biology class as we are focusing on a unit concerning food waste.

This idea emerged from

  • An Individual

How far along is your idea?

  • It’s just been created! It’s existed for 1 day - 1 month

2 comments

Join the conversation:

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Spam
Photo of Kasara
Team

I think your idea of the revolving fridge is very creative. Will the shelves be revolving continuously, or only when you open the door? Or maybe the shelves will only revolve when you press a button after opening the door. What will happen if the motor breaks? Will the shelves be able to support all of the food on them and still be able to rotate effectively? I admire how you made the space smaller so that people will buy less food and in turn reduce food waste. I think the revolving shelves will help people eat food faster so that they don't go bad while sitting in the back of the shelf. Good job!

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Spam
Photo of Zachary Foss
Team

The revolver fridge seems like a decent idea, but I believe there are some flaws. If there is a family with many young children that are able to open the fridge, will they be able to operate the revolving shelves without spilling the contents? This comes to mind because if a bottle of wine was on the shelf and the child went to grab the milk carton and hit the revolving cycle and the bottle broke and cut the child, the mom would not be very happy.
My other concern would be the cost of the fridge. With all of this technology and parts it sounds like it will be a high costly fridge and because of this, a lot of families wouldn’t be able to afford it. This would put sales down and essentially put you out of business with the fridge.
Enough of the negativity now and let’s focus on the positives. The fridge itself will be great on saving food because the space will allow families to buy only the food they need and what they want. This will not only help their grocery bill but also their health. The technology sounds top notch and it will certainly save food by addressing the way people think when it comes to storing food.
Keep working with idea and never give up on your dreams.

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