Using 3D Printing to Rapid Prototype the Pressa Bottle was a Family Affair

[UPDATE: The Pressa Bottle Kickstarter campaign has gone live–in the first 48 hours, it raised an impressive $10K and is well on the way to the $35K CAD funding goal. Among the backing rewards is the option to receive one of the original 3D printed bottles or other 3D printed components.]

Before they had even entered college, Ontario, Canada-based brothers Luke and Jesse Hambly knew that they would be working with each other when they got older. The pair both had similar sensibilities and planned to open a business together once they graduated, they even put their first business plan together while still in high school. And now, eight years later the brothers are on the verge of launching their first business on crowdfunding website Kickstarter and are hoping that their campaign will be successful enough to not only fund their startup, but start up a completely new trend.

While Jesse briefly worked on building up a retail clothing brand, he eventually turned his attentions to a product that he and his brother could develop together while still in college. The Pressa Bottle is a drinking bottle with a fruit press inside of it that allows users to infuse their water with fresh fruit juice while they are drinking it. There have been water bottles that have built-in chambers for fruit before, but the bottle designed by Jesse and Luke put a unique twist on the concept, literally.

“I had a bunch of female roommates who were all infusing their water with lemons and stuff and they were always complaining that they were dumping out lemons at the end of the day that still had lots of flavor in them. I just thought if you could put a little cold press juicer in there it would be relatively easy to get all the flavour out if it. It works the same as an infused bottle but the added twist on ours is we have a patent pending twist-and-press system. It basically makes the inside of the bottle work like a cold juice press,” Jesse told the Guelph Mercury.

Jesse, the oldest brother at 26, decided to seek marketing and advertising degrees at Georgian College while his 24-year-old brother Luke graduated with a degree from a mechanical engineering program at Conestoga College. And if it seems like their parents were trying to breed the entire staff of a startup then you really wouldn’t be far off. It turns out that their younger brother Mason is currently attending film school, so he offered to pitch in to help produce the Pressa Bottle’s multimedia materials.

Here is a brief video demonstrating how the Pressa Bottle works:

Once Jesse told Luke about his idea for the Pressa Bottle he started immediately designing the prototype. They knew that in order to get their product launched that they would need a working proof of concept, and that they would need to do some research to see what people thought of the idea. Luke started 3D printing prototypes and they would end up showing off the proto-Pressa to anyone they could, carefully listening to their thoughts and incorporating them into the next 3D printed iteration.

“Jesse basically came up with the idea and from there we went and started prototyping. I bought a 3D printer so we kind of just started making prototypes and we would show prototypes to people and get their feedback – what they like, what they didn’t like,” Luke explained.

After six months and countless prototypes the brothers had finally fine-tuned their product and the Pressa was born. And to try and make it stand out from the crowd, Jesse decided to focus on the fact that there wasn’t another fruit-infusing water bottle like theirs on the market.

Several of the 3D printed prototypes.

“This is the only one that will let you twist the dial on top and squeeze your fruit and really the only one that will let you press your fruit inside. So, we are trying to start a new trend of pressed water. We want to get away from people thinking it is infused water. Our thing is pressed water. That is how we separate ourselves in the market,” explained Jesse

The Pressa Bottle was designed so the chamber can hold enough fruit for four or five servings depending on how many twists you give the lid. Not counting the bottle itself, the lid is made of only three parts that will easily come apart and are completely dishwasher safe. The first step for Jesse and Luke is to launch their Kickstarter campaign in the next few weeks. Then they plan to sell the bottle exclusively online before finally launching it into retail stores. You can find out more about the Pressa Bottle on their website. [Update: the Kickstarter is live!]