Spit Save

Project Overview

Brass instruments have spit valves, also known as water keys, for emptying accumulated spit and condensation. Most brass players simply empty their spit onto the ground, which is highly unsanitary, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, there is a need for a way to catch and disinfect spit from brass instruments.

This project was part of the 2020 Mechanical Engineering Summer Design Intensive, a four-week program provided by the University of Colorado, Boulder. In this program, each participating student worked on a design project with remote guidance from peer mentors, alumni and industry mentors, and university faculty. There were also weekly workshops covering various technical and professional topics. Students could come up with their own project ideas or work with a client. The idea for the Spit Save was proposed by Jean Hertzberg, and professor and researcher at CU. Because of the short timeline of the program, projects were not expected to reach full realization.

Ideation and Initial Prototyping

For my new approach, I modeled my product off of the existing WindSorb with an added sanitation feature: a spray bottle activated by a squeeze pump, based on old-fashioned perfume bottles. When the squeeze pump is attached to the spit valve lever, the user can open their spit valve and spray the disinfectant at the same time using only one hand.

Hand Sketches

CAD

First Prototype

Future Developments

What I Learned

During this design intensive, I not only improved on new and current skills, such as CAD, prototyping, project management, presenting, and career-building, but I also learned more about what it is to be an engineer. For much of this program, I was worried that my design wasn't original. After all, most of what I did was take two existing technologies and put them together to make something new. However, after discussing my concerns with my various mentors, I learned that the preliminary steps of any engineering design almost always involves taking an existing product and expanding on it. One mentor told me that sometimes it takes an engineer to see how two things could fit together to make something else.

Something else I struggled with was deciding on a design idea. Eventually, I decided to take one of my ideas and build a basic prototype. This was an important turning point for me because doing this helped me realize that my project needed further constraints (it must be operable with only one hand). This helped me narrow down my list of ideas until I could decide on a better design. I learned that sometimes, skipping the complicated analysis and mental evaluation and simply testing out an idea in a physical form can be an integral deciding factor in the design process.