McDonald’s has created a STRAW, or Suction Tube for Reverse Axial Withdrawal, to perfectly complement its new Chocolate Shamrock Shake. 

The Chocolate Shamrock Shake is, as the name implies, a special drink that tastes of chocolate and shamrocks. To improve the experience further, McDonald’s enlisted the minds behind projects for NASA and DARPA to design a new drinking straw.

These engineers and scientists came up with the “Suction Tube for Reverse Axial Withdrawal” to make drinking the shake more pleasurable.

Seth Newburg is principal engineer and managing partner at NK Labs. This company has teamed up with JACE Design to engineer a new way to drink. Newburg explains: “It turned out to present quite a few engineering and scientific challenges.”

The process of developing the STRAW involved revisiting the white board a lot. The team created countless 3D printed physical prototypes and even used fluid dynamics simulations.

Newburg said:

“A lot of designs we came up with would work well when the shake was full, or might work when the shake was empty, but in a lot of situations, we found if we didn’t get the diameters just right, we’d end up drawing in air, or the first few sips would be good, but you had to wait a minute for the straw to be recharged.”

https://youtu.be/zc7hmqrGyPE

The Perfect STRAW by McDonald’s

The final STRAW is in a J shape. It has two large holes on its tip which allows for the perfect mix of shake. There is then a third hole which allows you to continue sucking at the bottom of the straw.

But does it really work? Newburg explains:

“At some points when you’re drinking it, you can get an exact 50-50 mix of the flavors. But with the different conditions: Full cup, nearly empty cup, depending how much it melted, you could get some slight variations. But we made sure that you’re still getting both flavors all the way through.”

The final design is rigid plastic and it is thinner than a normal milkshake straw. And apparently it works. But one has the sneaking suspicion it’s probably a marketing stunt to poke fun at innovation culture (while also drawing attention to McDonald’s).

Only 2,000 have been made and will be distributed to 80 cities in the US over the coming weeks. If you’re lucky enough to come across one, the STRAW will be free to use. There is potential for this innovative drinking design to be mass-produced, but only if it’s popular.

Source: Fastcodesign