Created by Shanbhag, Hailan Zhang, last modified on Feb 22, 2018

Liz Ramos (etramos) - ECE 110

Hailan Shanbhag (hshanbha) - ECE 110


Introduction

1. Statement of Purpose

Our project is to make a mug that will sense the temperature of the liquid inside, and then give the user a countdown as to how long they need to wait before their drink is cool enough to drink. This project would be useful for people that drink a lot of hot liquids and want a better way to know that their drink is cool enough.

The problems we intend to tackle through our design are burnt tongues and hot drinks gone lukewarm. Alerting the user when the drink is cool enough to their liking, they no longer need to guess when the temperature is right by using their tongues or be too cautious and let the drink get cold. Once the desired temperature is reached, the cup will alert the user by an LED on the cup and a sound from the user interface.

2. Background Research

We looked into the different type of LED screens (possible use of mobile app instead) and liquid safe temperature sensors. We also looked at a similar ECE 110 Honors project done called Smart Thermal Cup 2.0. Their project is similar in the problem that they are solving, however, our implementation is slightly different. We aim to inform the user the time that they will be able to drink their tea or coffee, as well as allowing them to personalize the temperature setting.


Design Details

Block Diagram / Flow Chart

Temperature sensors (outside and in) connected to microcontroller to import data.

Use collected data to calculate time, display to LED screen or phone. Interface that allows adjusting what temperature you want to drink the liquid?

System Overview



Parts

    Temperature Sensor - Waterproof (DS18B20) or Amphenol Advanced Sensors ZTP-101T (infrared temperature sensor)

    16x2 Sunlight Readable Character LCD

    TMP36 Temperature Sensor


Possible Challenges

Connecting some parts, like the LED screen and the temperature sensor might be a little tough since a lot of the parts we found online would not mold very well to a mug. Most LED screens have to be connected to a breadboard and don’t seem like they would easily be connected to a mug. We could avoid this problem by using your phone as the screen instead and having the interface through a mobile phone instead.


References

Comments:

You can also look into a lower complexity display (such as 7 segment displays) to make it easier to implement. Additionally, interacting an Arduino with your cellphone can be kind of a pain (bluetooth modules can take a lot of time to get working) but it is definitely doable. You'll have a couple of design decisions to make down the line, but that is all part of the fun! Project approved.
Posted by chorn4 at Feb 21, 2018 16:57

I like the idea!  I agree with Chris, getting Arduino to link with your phone can be difficult but there are plenty of controllers that can do it.  Just make sure if you need to get more than one controller (for sensing or sending info to the phone) that they are compatible, we've had some trouble with that in the past.
Posted by mnwilso2 at Feb 21, 2018 23:42