As part of our “Experimentation and Measurement” class, my team was offered 2 prompts dealing with engines & planes, and 1 self-determined prompt, where teams could pick their own project as long as they used a thermal camera as the measurement tool. We went with the latter, and set out to redesign the ice cream cone to minimize ice cream “meltiness”.

This project had 3 phases (i) quantifying “meltiness” (ii)  testing existing cones/features and (iii) redesigning cones.

For Part 1 - We used FLIR thermal cameras to image ice cream scoops melting. Initial trials imaged from the top, but final trials pivoted to cameras imaging the front & back during melting (allowing temp distribution across the cone to be imaged, & reduced total test time from full scoop melt (45min) to when cone reached temp equilibrium with the room (20min).

Combining our learnings, we designed a final “optimized” design that used the cake cone base, double edge brim, thick wall, larger diameter that conclusively performed better than off the shelf cake cones.