After our final design presentation, we decided that the form factor and price would guide our engineering design.
Our final design should be motivated by finding an edge over our competitors while maintaining the familiar form factor of what is currently on the market.
"Our product should look like a mug and it should be able to fit where existing mugs can fit."
The most important design decision we finalized was the form factor of the cup. Previously, we were discussing different rectangular prisms to allow Peltier cells to be connected mechanically in parallel to increase the rate at which heating and cooling can be achieved. However, the rectangular prism configuration would not fit in existing cup holders in your car, in your bag. Additionally, existing beverage vendors would have a difficult time slotting a rectangular mug in their machines to load it with beverage. Deviating from a cylinder would severely impact cup usability. We have decided to use a cylinder and hence we are opting to achieve our heating and cooling rates by increasing the number of Peltiers at the bottom of the mug, mechanically in series but electrically in parallel.
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