INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN: Inmate Meal Tray by Scott Graham at Coroflot.com

INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN: Inmate Meal Tray

INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN: Inmate Meal Tray from Scott Graham

INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN: Inmate Meal Tray

This assignement was to evolve CSC's typical OTS acquisition of segregated inmate meal trays.

Currently, 12,000 units are now in institutions across the country.

Existing design = four distinct moulds and four distinct parts for a tray with one useable side and one lid;

With one mould and one distinct part -- two of which are fused to make one reversible tray with identical, useable sides -- I created a self-leveling tray that stacks onto itself, with *double the lifespan, for a quarter of the cost*.

In their project brief, Correctional Service Canada dictated strict requirements for :
- unbreakability;
- impossibility of weapon-fabrication;
- maintaining temperature;
- superior food handling (i.e., unacceptability of taller food items being squashed where trays are stacked);
- internal and external dimensional requirements for portion control and existing washing/cooling/storage infrastructure.

These were achieved by means of proprietary material choice and part geometry.

Perspective presentation page for the RFP, showing orthos, an assembly view and x-sections (showing outer nesting and inner volumes). This is the culmination of three years of work, from ideation through technical refinement, to handing off the preliminary shop drawings.

Form-fit prototype. Has original, deeper cavities and condiment wells. Prototype is also taller than final.

Prototype: gray and green parts are identical. Showing un-welded halves that together make one tray. Note their undersides where cavities and ribs abut each other thus doubling the material thickness of cavity floors, resulting in much greater strength than previous OTS designs with EPS injected into cavities between tray halves to reduce cavity floor collapse.

Prototype: gray and green parts are identical. Showing un-welded halves that together make one tray.

Prototype: showing identical halves in two colours. Note their individual asymmetry and lack of flat balance. Together, these make one tray.

Prototype: showing the part's male and female perimeter weld channels

Final product: top view. Shallow food cavities on left.

Final product: showing how one tray nests into another.

Final product: showing how trays nests into one another.

Final product: side view of two stacked units. To reiterate, the cream and brown halves are identical. This product design consists of one part*, made twice, then fused together to create one final tray. * Each part is asymmetrical, with male and female cavity ridges, male and female perimeter weld channels, and stabilizing feet.