Neil Varghese - neilv2 - ECE 120
Swetank Griyage - griyage2 - ECE 120
Raghava Ravi - raghava4 - ECE 120
Cereal Bot 9001
Introduction
Purpose:
Waking up in the morning in a chore for most people. Everyone wants to spend just a few more minutes in bed, but that’s not always possible. What if we could spare you those few extra minutes by saving you time from preparing your breakfast? Cereal aficionados can rejoice! Our goal is to build a machine that makes your cereal for you in the morning based on your preferences. There will be toppings that the user can select and the machine will automatically initiate the process when the built in clock module reaches a certain time, usually set to the same time as the user’s alarm, it will begin so that the cereal will be ready by the time the user brushes their teeth and/or showers.
Background research:
We came up with idea while discussing about another project idea. It’s a common issue that residents with most students that can only afford a simple breakfast in the morning before rushing out to classes. The benefit of a cereal bot can shave off minutes from a student’s morning rush, possibly helping them catch that bus they just missed or use that extra time to study. Based on preliminary market research, there are no mainstream products such as ours.
It seems that using an Arduino to control the 3+ servos would be the best course of action as it allows the user to input what toppings and such they want on their cereal and the arduino can do the necessary logic to send voltage to a certain servo. Another reason for needing to use an Arduino is to implement an clock module that allows the cereal bot to be activated at a certain time.
Design
Block Diagram:
System Overview:
The project consists of a Arduino which is responsible for controlling the three or more servos that dispense the cereal, milk, and one or more toppings. The arduino will also have a clock module to keep track of time. When it is a certain time, the bot will start preparing the cereal. The purpose of the proximity sensor is to ensure that the cereal does not overflow from the bowl. We also want to set up a simple interface using buttons that allows the user to pick which toppings they want on a certain day.
Parts
- Plastic tubes to hold fruit pieces, cereal
Liquid container with a water spigot
Heavy base to support various ingredients
Continous Rotation Servos (to turn archimedes screw)
Proximity Sensor (to prevent overflow of cereal)
Arduino clock module
- Arduino Uno
- Breadboard
Power (AC)
Buttons to enter input (choose what type of cereal wanted)
Bowl
Plastic pieces to emulate cereal and toppings
Archimedes screw
Challenges
It’s difficult to know how much to pour and when stop dispensing the ingredients. Based on how many toppings the user wants, the machine needs to adjust how much of each to dispense. The amount of milk to pour will also vary depending on how much cereal there is in the bowl.
Another issue is how large the bowl is. This can be circumvented by using a standard sized bowl.
The thing with uniquely shaped pieces of ingredients is that they can become stuck in the opening of the dispensers. We’d might need to vibrate the container somehow to try to dislodge them.
References
Arduino.cc. (2017). Arduino - Servo. [online] Available at: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/Servo [Accessed 27 Sep. 2017].
Arduino.cc. (2017). Arduino - DS1302 Real Time Clock. [online] Available at: https://playground.arduino.cc/Main/DS1302 [Accessed 27 Sep. 2017].