Five Ohio State students and graduates earn more than $66,000 in Kickstarter campaign for their Titan Mixer Bottle. From left to right: Gered Bowman, Adan Ali, Frederick Bowman, Lonie Smith and Mohamed Rage. Credit: Courtesy of FiveID.

Five Ohio State students and graduates earn more than $66,000 in Kickstarter campaign for their Titan Mixer Bottle. From left to right: Gered Bowman, Adan Ali, Fred Bowman, Lonie Smith and Mohamed Rage. Credit: Courtesy of FiveID.

A group of five Ohio State students and graduates of the Department of Design are trying to make clumpy protein shakes a thing of the past with their new invention, the Titan Mixer Bottle.

The guys at FiveID have created a protein mixer bottle, which they said is unlike any other on the market today.

The bottle can hold up to 26 oz. of fluids and uses a pump motion that moves the company’s patented auger blade, which cuts through clumps of protein, leaving fitness advocates with a smooth and consistent protein shake. The Titan Mixer Bottle also has a “store & pour container,” which holds up to two standard-sized scoops of your favorite supplement.

“What our bottle has over all these other bottles is control,” said Lonie Smith, a FiveID member and 2014 graduate in industrial design. “Our mixer gives you so much control and your energy is all going into making a smooth vortex — it’s all around more efficient.”

Fred Bowman, a FiveID member and a third-year in industrial design, said the idea for the bottle came about one morning when he was about to mix his protein shake with a traditional shaker bottle and thought to himself, “There has to be a better way to mix protein than the way everyone else is doing it.”

Fast-forward to a year and a half later, past numerous hours of ideation and different prototypes, the group of designers have completed a successful campaign on Kickstarter. The campaign drew $66,694 from more than 2,000 backers. FiveID now has a product that could shake up the shaker bottle industry.

Prototype of the Titan Mixer Bottle. Credit: Courtesy of FiveID

Prototype of the Titan Mixer Bottle. Credit: Courtesy of FiveID

“We were confident we had a solid project, or solid idea, on our hands. But for things to pick up as quickly as it did that was a little surprising, in a good way,” said Adan Ali, a FiveID member and 2015 graduate in industrial design.

Mohamed Rage, a FiveID member and 2014 graduate in industrial design, said the campaign reached its goal in 10 days, and in total was so successful, the team now has a work order for more than 3,000 bottles to send out to its backers.

“Once we get our Kickstarter check, we will use those funds to give the go-ahead to our manufacturers to start mass producing to fill those orders, to those first backers who have supported us,” Rage said. “Those are the ones to get the first product before anyone else, before it’s actually on the shelves.”

The finished product will soon be available for presale purchase on the website titanmixerbottle.com, and will retail for $25-30, Rage said. FiveID added the company plans to have bottles available at local retailers within two years.

Gered Bowman, a third-year in industrial design, said that during the developmental stages of the bottle, FiveID surveyed fitness enthusiasts for feedback on traditional bottles, and two major concerns from their consumer surveys mentioned odor and overall clean up after bottle use. Therefore, they kept cleanliness in mind when designing the Titan Mixer Bottle. They produced their bottle with Triton plastic, which Gered said is both odor-resistant and shatter-resistant.

Smith said that the group would love to have OSU Athletics become a sponsored user of their product, but overall, they want to target the everyday athlete.

“We want this to be a bottle for everybody,” Smith said. “We don’t want it to just be perceived as you have to be a class-A athlete to enjoy this.”

Ali said the group plans on targeting multiple fitness events to gain exposure, including one of the biggest — the Arnold Classic.

“We’re going to be in the Arnold Classic next year to take it to the next level,” Ali said.

Fred said the FiveID team is grateful for all the support they have received, and they are optimistic about the future.

“We definitely thank all our backers and supporters for their feedback,” Fred said. “We also want to tell everybody that this is just the beginning of everything. We have different ideas of what we want to do as far as design goes, and we’re really looking forward to the future.”