Training Cup
Brand: Simka Rose (Parent Company: Lyra Collective)
Role: Lead Mechanical Design Engineer
Scope: End-to-end product development (concept ideation, design, prototyping, testing, DFM, supplier development, and validation testing)
Material: 100% FDA Food-Grade Silicone
Thoughtfully designed for a baby’s development and safety
Learning to drink from a straw is an important developmental milestone that develops lip rounding and promotes speech development. Simka Rose’s Training Cup teaches toddlers to drink from an open cup and safely learn to use a straw.
Problem Statement:
Simka Rose wanted to develop an adaptable training cup to expand their portfolio of baby & toddler feeding products. My task was to design a training cup that accommodated their current silicone straw and was made of 100% silicone, leveraging existing manufacturing capabilities and maintaining cohesion with their product line. The design needed to guide children from bottle to open cup, have an extra-leak-proof seal, have ergonomics suited to small hands, and compliment Simka Rose’s existing aesthetics.
The Solution: A Refined Cup that’s Built to Perform
The Simka Rose Training Cup packs a lot of useful features into an ergonomic and beautiful design. During development, special attention was paid to component tolerances and interfacial fits — the lid and straw connections are extra leakproof, and assembly/disassembly forces are finely tuned so that a child cannot easily remove components, but a parent can.
The Training Cup is compression molded in 100% FDA food-grade silicone. Significant testing went into selecting a durometer of 40A for the silicone, balancing the softness needed for a comfortable infant grip with enough rigidity to maintain the cup's structure and functionality. Designing for compression molding required careful attention to wall thickness, parting line placement, and draft angles to ensure clean release and consistent part quality. These considerations were baked into the design from the start, resulting in a smooth transition from CAD to production with minimal tooling revisions.
Three ways to sip
The Simka Rose Training Cup is designed to help little ones progress through the 3-Phase Developmental Drinking Method (Dawn Winkelmann, M.S, CCC-SLP). As they progress from drinking through a straw to an open cup, they’re hitting fine motor control milestones that establish proper swallowing, feeding, and breathing techniques.
Made for little hands.
Soft grippy silicone, little ribs, and a perfectly-teeny size help keep the cup in your baby’s hands, and a weighted base keeps the cup from tipping over. But if the cup winds up on the floor (or is thrown across the room, perhaps), It’s extra-leak-resistant lid keeps things dry.
Endlessly reusable. Good for the planet.
This cup is built to take a beating. Made of 100% FDA food-grade silicone, it’s dishwasher, microwave, and freezer safe. It’s better for your baby, and better for the planet.
Concepts, Prototyping & Testing
Concept Generation focused on overall form, grip solutions, and lid closure design / leakproofness.
Prototyping and testing involved multiple methods including visual prototypes (sketches and renderings) and 3D printed prototypes - including this rubber 3D print. Prototypes were tested with actual babies to simulate accurate use cases.
Note: I did not have babies actually drink out of this prototype, since the material is definitely not food safe.☺︎
Everyone needs a friend
The Training Cup and Snack Cup are perfect companions. They share a cohesive design language and comprise a beautiful product family for Simka Rose.