About Us
Six Simple Machines began as a small group of product designers, engineers and (not least) coffee lovers
It was a simple idea over coffee
The best solutions always seem obvious in retrospect. The story of Six Simple Machines began in 2010 with a simple idea; to reduce the amount of plastic being used to package milk for Australian cafes. Our first machine, The Juggler, was a world first and has transformed the way Australian cafes receive and use milk.
The ideas and coffees have kept coming and we now build a range of labour and plastic saving dispensers used in many food service market segments.
We first set out to build espresso machines
Founders Adam Preston and Ross Nicholls met at University. Adam was studying Mechatronics Engineering. Ross was studying Industrial Design. Both had a desire to build a business making things that make a difference. A few parties and a ridiculous working prototype of an espresso machine and a lot of coffee later, they had decided that Six Simple Machines would design and build espresso machines.
It was in the early stages of this endeavour that it became obvious that a genuine problem cafes were struggling with was waste and a massive proportion of this waste was being generated by the use of milk in 2 litre milk bottles.
Six Simple Machines?
We love simplicity. But we’re realists. The world is a complex place. But even the most complex challenge can be reduced to simple elements.
A simple machine is a mechanism that changes the magnitude or direction of a force. Renaissance scientists described six simple machines which were said to be the building blocks on which all complex machines are built. They are the Screw, Wheel and Axle, Pulley, Wedge, Lever, Inclined Plane.
We choose Six Simple Machines as our company namesake to reflect our ‘first principle’ approach when solving complex design problems. If our products appear simple, then we figure we’ve done our job well!