Toy Coffee Machine – functional design

This toy coffee machine was designed for my daughter out of a bit of frustration:
Most toy coffee machines look nice, but the cups never actually get filled. That always bothered me, so I decided to design a toy coffee machine that actually fills the cups during play.

To make this possible, I developed a simple mechanical filling system.
The cup is placed underneath the outlet, the lever is pulled down, then pushed back up, and the cup is filled, simple, intuitive, and fun.

The “coffee pads” are refilled from the top, inserted with the round side facing down.
The machine can hold up to three fillings at once, allowing multiple coffees before refilling.

The overall shape of the machine is driven by its function. Because of this, it does not resemble a classic coffee machine at first glance. Instead, the design follows the principle of “form follows function.”

The moving part of the mechanism are designed for a 608 ball bearings.
I personally used 3D printed 608 bearings only, which work perfectly well for this application and keep the model entirely printable without additional hardware.
I used the following printed bearing design from Jerryie:
https://makerworld.com/de/models/37413-print-in-place-bearings#profileId-1370391

Assembly:

I’ve included photos showing the assembly process to make putting the coffee machine together, but it's not particularly difficult an took only about 5-10 minutes.

The result is a playful, functional toy that encourages imaginative play and makes pretend coffee preparation much more satisfying.

Work in progress:
I am currently working on a bigger version that looks more like a traditional coffee machine, while keeping the same functional filling mechanism. so stay tuned.