As a college student, drinking coffee became a huge part of my life — I used it for energy to get through classes and as a means to get to know people over. Coffee shops became the place I focused best, and I quickly associated the drink with productivity and warmth. I started to rely on caffeine, and the habit of frequently ordering lattes quickly became expensive, and I wanted to figure out a way to make espresso-based drinks at home.

With two friends, I focused on making a machine that was different from the many at-home coffee machines available. However, a shot of espresso requires 9 times the atmospheric pressure to pull, and that pressure is customarily created by pushing steam through coffee grounds, which usually requires an expensive machine. We aimed to find an alternate way to make espresso drinks, one that was completely mechanically powered.

We designed a portable, mechanically-powered espresso maker. We first surveyed our target audience — other college students — to understand what kind of coffee drinks they purchased and would make at home. From there we decided on our direction, and after calculating through several designs, we found that we could use compression and threads to create the required pressure without electricity.

We iterated through several CAD models (on Solidworks) and created a 3D printed prototype which helped us understand the device's ease of assembly and how it would feel when used. The final prototype and instructions for use is shown below.