Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
58 Energy-Saved Smart Kettle
Boxiang Zhao
Naomi Peng
Yuen Sun
 Dean Biskup design_document1.pdf
design_document2.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pdf
proposal3.pdf
##**Project name**: Energy-Saved Smart Kettle
##**Team Members**(3): Yuen Sun, Boxiang Zhao, Naomi Peng
##**Problem**: Nowadays, people are living a fast-paced life and most of us love to drink a cup of coffee or tea but probably give up because it could be time-consuming. Why not having something that can save us time from boiling water? We are always trying to improve the efficiency of everything. We do not want to waste our time on useless things. For example, it takes a few minutes to wait for the kettle to be full and boil and it is annoying. In addition, people have different requirements for the temperature of the water and when the water is too hot, they need to wait for it to cool down and when the water is too cold they need to boil it again. We are thinking of designing a smart kettle that could help people to spend less time on these useless things.

##**Solution Overview**:
-First, the smart kettle would be able to load a specific amount of water so that it won’t cause overflow and fire. We will be using a sensor that could sense how much water left in the kettle. So that we can ensure that exactly the amount of water will be boiled as needed.

-Second, a temperature sensor would be used to measure the temperature of the water in the kettle and display it on an LCD screen. In addition, the remaining time for the water to reach the target temperature.

-Last, different from the traditional way to keep warm, which is maintaining the water at a specific temperature, say 40 °C, we are modifying the features that we will only reheat to water to 40 °C when the temperature drops to 30°C. This is a good way to save electricity.

##**Solution Component**:
-Weight sensor is to measure the water amount in the kettle.
-Temperature sensor is to measure the temperature of the water.
-Water pump is to load water into the kettle from a water tank.
-Arduino is used to control and process the signal received from sensors.

##**Criterion for Success**
-Be able to display the remaining time to reach the target temperature, the displayed time should be close to the real needed time.
-Be able to refill the water automatically.
-Be able to reheat the water back to the target temperature.

Automatic Piano Tuner

Joseph Babbo, Colin Wallace, Riley Woodson

Automatic Piano Tuner

Featured Project

# Automatic Piano Tuner

Team Members:

- Colin Wallace (colinpw2)

- Riley Woodson (rileycw2)

- Joseph Babbo (jbabbo2)

# Problem

Piano tuning is a time-consuming and expensive process. An average piano tuning will cost in the $100 - $200 range and a piano will have to be retuned multiple times to maintain the correct pitch. Due to the strength required to alter the piano pegs it is also something that is difficult for the less physically able to accomplish.

# Solution

We hope to bring piano tuning to the masses by creating an easy to use product which will be able to automatically tune a piano by giving the key as input alongside playing the key to get the pitch differential and automatically turning the piano pegs until they reach the correct note.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1 - Motor Assembly

A standard tuning pin requires 8-14 nm of torque to successfully tune. We will thus need to create a motor assembly that is able to produce enough torque to rotate standard tuning pins.

## Subsystem 2 - Frequency Detector/Tuner

The device will use a microphone to gather audio measurements. Then a microprocessor processes the audio data to detect the pitch and determine the difference from the desired frequency. This can then generate instructions for the motor; direction to turn pegs and amount to turn it by.

## Subsystem 3 - User Interface/Display Panel

A small but intuitive display and button configuration can be used for this device. It will be required for the user to set the key being played using buttons on the device and reading the output of the display. As the device will tune by itself after hearing the tone, all that is required to display is the current key and octave. A couple of buttons will suffice to be able to cycle up and down keys and octaves.

## Subsystem 4 - Replaceable Battery/Power Supply

Every commercial product should use standard replaceable batteries, or provide a way for easy charging. As we want to develop a handheld device, so that the device doesn’t have to drag power wires into the piano, we will need a rechargeable battery pack.

# Criterion For Success

The aim of the Automatic Piano Tuner is to allow the user to automatically tune piano strings based on a key input alongside playing a note. We have several goals to help us meet this aim:

- Measure pitch accurately, test against known good pitches

- Motor generates enough torque to turn the pegs on a piano

- Tuner turns correctly depending on pitch

- Easy tuning of a piano by a single untrained person

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