Bektemir Pratov

Design engineer. I make physical products that people can understand, look after and keep.

I grew up in a village near Bishkek with one of each machine, and each one had a name. I still name mine: my multicooker is Karen. I design for the person who sees a product only from the outside.

The Hague, Netherlands · BSc Industrial Design Engineering, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, 2025, with highest distinction

How I work

A Burger King employee holding two reusable cups at the counter

Observe

The serving counter my PackBack concepts are for. Photo: PackBack.

Sketch

My first sketches for the L’OR Barista Petite.

Render

Our final StormRider module. I led the team.

3D-printed brew chamber parts inside a black coffee machine body

Prototype

Brew-chamber parts I 3D-printed, L’OR Barista Petite.

Test

Our reduced-scale model test, StormRider.

Make

Billion Battles, my card game: 200 units made in Shenzhen.

Selected projects

L’OR Barista Petite

JDE Peet’s · Sep 2024 to Jan 2025

Industrial Design Engineer, internship, graded 10/10. I owned the redesign, guided by two senior engineers.

Customers found the L’OR Barista Sublime large and expensive. JDE Peet’s asked for a smaller, cheaper double-capsule machine that keeps the Sublime’s internal architecture, so production needs no major retooling.

Pencil sketches of compact coffee machine ideas with yellow highlights

My first sketches, before any rendering.

AI-generated render of a black and gold coffee machine concept

An AI render made from an early sketch. Renders like this made the team’s favourite concept look finished.

We turned early sketches into AI renders to explore more ideas, and the team liked the concept that shrank the water tank, the heater power and the capsule storage. It looked finished, and on paper it worked. Brewing and temperature tests in JDE’s lab ruled it out: the coffee would taste worse, the machine would perform worse, and it would create safety risks.

CAD section of the Petite showing the new brew chamber, the heater, the PCB and the coffee path

My redesign in CAD, side section: a new brew chamber, the heater turned 90°, the PCB turned 45° and a shorter coffee path.

3D-printed brew chamber parts fitted inside a black coffee machine body

Brew-chamber parts I 3D-printed and assembled in the body to check the fit.

So I moved the redesign to the brew chamber, the part that created most of the empty space, and replaced its hinged pistol with spring-loaded sliders that hold both capsule sizes. The prints took 10 to 20 hours. I checked them from my phone at night and assembled the parts in the lab the next morning. I was in contact with the factory, and we optimised the redesign for mass production, with the same components, supply chain and part moulds.

Three coffee machines side by side with their widths: Petite 83 mm, Sublime 125 mm, L’OR Barista 180 mm

The Petite next to the Sublime and the L’OR Barista, at the same scale: 83 mm, 125 mm and 180 mm wide. The Petite is my redesign.

Result

8 cm wide, about a third narrower than the Sublime, with about 80% of its parts reused.

What I took from it

A polished render can make a weak concept look finished. Next time I would test the riskiest constraint first, and only then render.

PackBack

Reusable cups for Burger King and KFC in the Netherlands · since Mar 2026

Medior Product Design Engineer. I led the engineering of two cup-activation concepts and redesigned the SmartBin’s screen and hinge.

At a busy counter, staff must scan each reusable cup to link it to the sale. A missed scan shows no problem at the counter. It shows up later, when the customer returns the cup and the return machine gives an error.

Burger King employee holding two reusable cups at the counter

A Burger King counter, where staff link each cup to the sale. Photo: PackBack.

Reusable Burger King cup on an orange serving tray with food

A cup served on a tray: the moment my two concepts activate it. Photo: PackBack.

I benchmarked five cup-reuse systems and the read-range limits at a counter: metal trays detune NFC, and water in a full drink absorbs UHF. Then I led two concepts that activate the cup while staff serve it, an NFC pad in the serving tray and a UHF RFID fence at the handover. I compared them on reliability, staff workflow and cost, and ran field and read-range tests on both. The test results stay with PackBack.

I also engineer the SmartBin, PackBack’s return machine. More than 100 units have been built. I redesigned its screen and hinge mechanism, which changed how the unit is assembled, and checked each change quickly with 3D-printed prototypes in the lab.

The SmartBin, PackBack’s return machine. Photo: PackBack.

Close-up of the SmartBin screen above the round return opening

The screen and the return opening. I redesigned the screen and its hinge. Photo: PackBack.

Three SmartBins in a row at an airport lounge

SmartBins in use at an airport. Photo: PackBack.

Result

5 reuse systems benchmarked, 2 activation concepts tested, more than 100 SmartBins built.

Philips Digital+ app

Philips, Amsterdam · Feb to Dec 2025

Industrial Design Engineer, graduation project, graded 9/10.

My graduation project covered advertising in the Philips Digital+ app. The ads did not fit the app, and they were hard to produce for the design team and more than ten advertising partners.

I led a mixed-methods study: 293 survey responses from engaged users, 20 unmoderated first-session tests on iOS and Android, monthly ad reports, and interviews with the marketing and design teams. It became ten measurable design requirements. Like most teams, we heard mainly from people who stayed. The users who left the app, or never found it, were missing from the data.

Frozone, the ad-production tool I coded. Its generative-AI module creates the ad visuals.

Phone screens of the Philips Digital+ app with in-app ads

New in-app ad formats in the Digital+ app, from my graduation project.

I tested Frozone with designers and stakeholders. Production became three times faster, but the visuals lost variety and originality.

Result

293 survey responses, 20 first-session tests, 10 measurable requirements, and a tool that made production 3x faster.

StormRider

Wavin with de BUCH · THUAS, Design with Nature semester · Feb to Jul 2024

I led the design and engineering team.

Streets rest on a layer of imported bluestone, and the build-up holds only 50 mm of rainfall. Wavin and de BUCH asked for a sub-layer in recycled PE100 that replaces the bluestone and stores stormwater.

Elephant feet

Bee hive

Hand sketch of a cuboid structure based on ant nests

Ant cuboid

Hand sketch of a dome structure based on a turtle shell

Turtle-shell dome, chosen

Four structures from nature, sketched by the team I led.

We modelled the four structures in Fusion 360 and compared them on stiffness, storage volume and interlocking. The turtle-shell dome won for its strength in compression. We simulated it under a 70 t/m² traffic load and checked it against rainfall of up to 110 mm/hour. To check the simulation, we tested a reduced-scale model under a proportionally higher load.

Render of a black dome module, two layers stacked, with perforations and interlocking edges

The final module in recycled PE100, designed as stackable blocks of at most 50 cm high. Our team’s design.

Small modules in a plastic tub of gravel while water is poured in

The reduced-scale model test we used to check the simulation.

Result

80% less bluestone and 70% more water storage under full road load.

SteamBox+

SteamBox · THUAS, Digital Manufacturing semester · Sep 2023 to Jan 2024

Lead design engineer in a team of three.

In the self-heating SteamBox lunchbox, steam reached only the bottom of the food. Every material had to be food-safe in 120 °C steam.

Slide with three iterations of the inner container

Iterations from a container idea to a layered bottom. Our team’s work, which I led.

Hand holding a dark perforated liner prototype

A laser-cut liner prototype with 1 mm holes.

We scored five directions on weighted objectives and redesigned the inner container: a micro-perforated, silicone-coated fibreglass liner in a double-wall shell. We laser-cut liner prototypes and tested them in cooking trials and lab permeability tests.

Exploded render of the lid, the steel frame, the perforated liner and the steel bottom

The final inner container, exploded.

Presenting the lunchbox prototypes at an exhibition table

Our prototypes at the semester exhibition.

Result

Steam flow up about 70%, a lab estimate.

Pals & Palms

BS Toys · THUAS, my first university project · 2022

Industrial designer in a team of four. I worked on sketching and ideation, business planning and package design.

BS Toys makes tech-free toys for active play. We designed an outdoor game for children aged 6 to 10: two teams lay out islands in the sand with a rope coastline, cast anchors to grow their land, and race to collect pirate items or capture the other team’s palm.

Pencil sketch of a run-and-freeze game idea with flags

One of the early game sketches.

A team member crouching in sand next to wooden game pieces and a rope

Testing laser-cut prototypes in the sand.

Pals & Palms game box with palms, anchors and pirate items

The final game in its box. I worked on the package design.

We sketched many game ideas, chose one with a C-Box, Harris profiles and weighted objectives, and tested laser-cut prototypes in the sand. When the first theme could not meet every requirement, we changed it and tested again.

Two people on a beach with an orange rope coastline and a palm flag

Playing the game on the beach.

The team presenting the game at the expo stand

Our team at the 2022 IDE Expo, where BS Toys chose the game.

Result

BS Toys chose it as the winning idea at the 2022 IDE Expo, among 20 other contenders: 1st place product.

More making

Billion Battles

A card game I took from concept to delivery: 200 units made in Shenzhen, shipped to backers in more than 20 countries. Project Manager at my own company, BekFlip Games.

Hand stretching a black fabric sleeve with a red LED ring

Red Light Strip

A stretchable light-therapy sleeve. The first LED circuit snapped when stretched; the zig-zag redesign reached +150% stretch with the circuit intact. Materials and prototyping lead in a team of four.

ECS Tests, Sonion

Test software for a robotic test cell. I developed the Windows test software and assisted with CAD; the Sonion team built the cell. Part-time project.

CAD model of the Upress sheet press with recycled sheets

Upress, Stichting Stunt

A press for recycled HDPE sheets. I made the CAD, helped with the drawings and ran the heating-layout and guiding-pole tests; others led the project. Freelance.