Senior Design Expo 2019

Shred-It
Riley Greene, Racquel Glickman, Molly
Hazlehurst
Advisor: Joshua Browne
Millions of people eat collard greens in
Kenya every single day for sustenance. The
vegetable is widespread throughout the
country, as it is plentiful and cheap. In Africa
where dietary variety is a luxury, many
people are eating this vegetable almost
exclusively. The traditional preparation of
the vegetable is extremely time consuming as
it requires hand rolling the large leaves into a
tight bundle and thinly slicing strips into
pieces that are no more than 0.25cm wide.
Currently there isn't a thin slicing leaf cutting
technology on the market in the United States
or otherwise. We believe to have a novel
solution to the problem that can help to
rapidly expedite the leaf cutting process for
millions of people in Kenya. The goal of the
project is to create an enclosed tabletop
shredder for collard greens that makes their
preparation more efficient, more safe, and
more sanitary.
As a team we felt that it was vital our solution
was cleanable, and made with parts that could
be easily replaced as necessary. Our solution
implements six rods that can be removed as
necessary via a system of eight shaft couplers
and four spring pins as shown in Figure 1.
The shredder was also made with kitchen
conditions in mind in terms of size and water
proofing. We recognized that the collard
greens would likely be wet as they entered the
device so using corrosion resistant materials
was paramount. In addition to proper material
selection, the electronics which drive the
blades needed to be effectively separated
from the cutting action due to the presence of
water.
Figure 1: Side view of the shredder showing
inner mechanisms
Another consideration that was factored into
our design was the fact that our device needed
to be food safe according to standards put into
place by the United States Department of
Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection
Service (USDA FSIS), the Kenya Bureau of
Standards (KEBS), and the International
Standards Organization (ISO). As our budget
was limited for the project at this stage our
project is currently not food safe and simply
being used as a proof of concept. However,
every part being used in our shredder has a
food safe equivalent, and implementing those
solutions moving forward does not pose a
problem.
Looking forward as a team we are currently
in collaboration with a SIPA student from
Kenya who has been keen to bring this
project to market. If possible and when
necessary we can make design modifications
to powering the machine via a mechanical
hand-crank or solar power. As approximately
half of Kenya is not on the grid - this may
increase the widespread usage of the device.
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