We had our first opportunity to meet with our project liaison, Dr. Andrew J. MacIntosh! We discussed the scope of work, explored the background of the drying process, and talked about how the food desiccator would be used to teach students fundamental concepts of food science. Afterwards, Dr. MacIntosh led us on a tour of the UF Food Science and Human Nutrition Pilot Plant where we saw the current food desiccation set up and had the opportunity to talk to former IPPD students on their work designing an evaporation unit. We ended our meeting by talking with Dr. MacIntosh about areas to focus our background research on in the coming week and began brainstorming ideas for the prototype based on Dr. MacIntosh’s specifications.

The drawing below is our first conceptualization of what the desiccator may look like. Many various iterations of this prototype will be created as the project progresses, but this drawing served as our team’s initial idea of how to implement all the features needed to created a customizable, learning-focused food desiccation system.