Julia Hutchison

4-15-20

8th Science

Fruit Catcher

I chose to make a device called a Fruit Catcher because I have seen firsthand how

much fruit is wasted by falling on the ground. It would help in many ways if we had

something that would save the fruit that falls. My device would be placed near the base of

the tree, strapped to the tree, and it would catch all of the falling fruit using a wide net.

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Initial Research

My research consisted of different devices that catch the fruit that falls from fruit trees because I

have seen firsthand how much fruit is wasted this way.

(Photos below are from a trip I took with my family.)

Many of my sources are patents that look something like what I would like to do. All of

the patents are from the 1900s, from 1918 to 1948. These are very old, so I wouldn’t be able to

find them in recent science journals or science magazines, so to do my research I had to rely

mostly on the internet. My other sources are people that are expressing the same concern that I

have: wasted fruit. One site states that the fruit that is falling in his neighborhood is a mess

(Markham, 2015). A different, very similar, site expresses pretty much the same thing.

Another has a graph that shows that most of the wasted fruit happens in the orchard.

(DownToEarth, 2018)

The gray part of this graph shows how much perfectly good food is wasted just in the

orchards. The food cannot be sold because it has fallen on the ground, my invention would help

solve this problem. I stumbled across the idea of a conveyor belt in my machine from one of my

sources. “Detached fruit were caught on a collection conveyor which also served to transport and

deposit the fruit in the bin.” (Domigan, 2003) This would help a lot. It encourages me to know

that others share my same concern. Two of my sources are from people who don’t want fallen

fruit to go to waste. My third source is the site with the enlightening graph. This graph shows

that more fruit is being wasted in the orchards than in any other state of its lifetime

(DownToEarth, 2018). My invention would help dramatically if it was implanted in orchards.

There have been earlier versions of this invention. Some are very close to what I want to do and

some are just on the right lines. This patent, in particular, is quite close to what I want to do.

(Candido, 1924)

On the other hand, this patent runs along the same idea, but not really the same product.

(Zwicker, 1918)

If done properly, my invention could help many farmers and save so much food. I am

trying to make a product that will catch falling fruit. My tool will most likely look somewhat like

the first patent, although I want to make it very simple to set up and very effective, but still have

it look nice. I liked the idea of canvas from the first patent (Candido, 1924). The canvas seems

like it would be very effective.

This research was very enlightening in the sense that I had the chance to explore different

patents of a similar product to mine, similar concerns to mine, and also the asset of the conveyor

belt. At first, I was not sure where to start with this project, but now I feel much better about

where to go next.

First Prototype

I made my first prototype out of cardboard and a piece of old cloth.

The first thing I did was cut out the pieces for the base and the spokes to support the canvas.

Second, I taped together the pieces for the base.

Third, I stapled the spokes to the base.

Fourth, I bent the spokes back, preparing to add the canvas.

Fifth, I cut out the center circle so I could drop it onto the existing structure to see how big the

outside circle needed to be.

Sixth, I put the canvas on the spokes and measured the width of the circle. Then, I strategically

marked out the edges of the outside circle using two pencils.

Seventh, I cut the outside circle out and cut a slit from the edge of the canvas to the edge of the

inner circle to allow for overlap.

Eighth, I stapled the canvas to the spokes. This was the most difficult and time consuming step.

Finally, I tested it using popcorn kernels.

Some fell out through gaps between the base and the canvas, so I added a couple of rubber bands

to close the gaps.

After adding the rubber bands, it worked perfectly and held a lot of popcorn kernels.

Since my first prototype is made out of cardboard and a thin piece of fabric, it was relatively

flimsy and I decided not to add too many popcorn kernels to the point that it would break, but if I

engineered later prototypes out of proper materials, like wood and a durable canvas or net, I

think this would work extremely well. As to be expected, there are some engineering difficulties

and obstacles, like how I would close up the gaps between the base and the canvas as I

experienced in my first test. I hope to work all of these out in the future and be able to maybe

take this device a step further and start producing it and selling it to orchards and farms if I think

it would be useful enough. I think this was a success overall and I am very happy with the

outcome. I am glad this worked and I hope my invention can be useful in the future.

Bibliography

Candido, Christo. “US1515551A - Fruit Catcher.” Google Patents, Google, 1924,

https://patents.google.com/patent/US1515551A/en.

Domigan, I.R., et al. “A Fresh Fruit Harvester for Apples Trained on Horizontal Trellises.”

Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research, Academic Press, 29 July 2003,

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0021863488902119.

“Each Year, Half the Fruits, Vegetables World Produces Are Wasted: FAO.” Down To Earth,

13 Nov. 2018,

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/health/each-year-half-the-fruits-vegetables-world-pr

oduces-are-wasted-fao-62085.

George, Boelman. “US1415863A - Fruit Catcher.” Google Patents, Google, 1921,

https://patents.google.com/patent/US1415863A/en.

“Making Sure Backyard Fruit Isn't Wasted.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 Sept.

2009, https://www.latimes.com/food/la-fo-gleaners9-2009sep09-story.html.

Markham, Derek. “City Fruit Harvested Almost 14 Tons of Unused Fruit from Seattle's

Urban Fruit Trees Last Year.” TreeHugger, Treehugger, 11 Oct. 2018,

https://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/city-fruit-working-preserve-urban-fruit-trees-an

d-increase-amount-fruit-harvested-them.html.