Electric Pencil Sharpener

Behind the design

Peek into the KiwiCo product design studio and the design process behind the Eureka Crate Electric Pencil Sharpener.

1. Sketching

   1. Any design we create starts with a sketch. In fact, the inspiration behind this crate didn't start with the pencil sharpener; it started with the pencil. That's also why this crate includes a notebook as well — no designer, inventor, or artist should be without a notebook and pencil!
2. 3D Printing

   1. We love our 3D printers. They're hands-down the easiest and fastest way to prototype oddly-shaped pieces, like the collar and the blade-holder we wanted for our pencil sharpener. Depending on the size and complexity, a single print can take between one and five hours to produce, which means that our printers are almost always humming away!
3. Iterating

   1. Try, test, adjust, repeat. For this crate, we prototyped a bunch of different sharpening techniques, from gears to blades to sandpaper. This design with laser-cut wood gears was eventually simplified and edited to achieve the more-reliable final version.