Meeting with Your TA

Description

By the Thursday of the third week, you must have a project approved, and should be ready to get working! At this time, you'll need to log into PACE and submit your schedule for the semester. Please be sure to make this as accurate as possible because once it's submitted, it can only be changed manually. Making a block of your schedule red means that you are unavailable during that time.

Once each person on your team has submitted their schedule, your TA will be able to easily check for available times to schedule a weekly meeting. Your TA should contact you, usually by the fourth week, via email, to set up a weekly meeting schedule at mutual convenience. During the first weekly meeting, your TA will assign your team a locker and a lab kit.

Weekly meetings with your TA are required and will be held throughout the entire semester until demonstrations are completed. Your TA is your project manager. The "homework" of the course consists of preparing for the weekly meetings. Your TA will evaluate your lab notebook each week, provide feedback, and recommend improvements. At each meeting you will be expected to present your progress since your last meeting, plans for the coming week, and any technical or administrative questions you need to discuss with your TA. You are expected to arrive on time and prepared to make good use of your time with your TA. Your TA may require that each team member to fill out the Progress Report Template and submit it to them prior to each weekly meeting.

Requirements and Grading

Attendance and participation in weekly meetings is required and will affect Teamwork and Lab Notebook scores. If you can't make it to a particular weekly meeting, it is your responsibility to inform your TA prior to the meeting time and set up an alternate time.

Submission and Deadlines

Your schedule must be submitted by the end of the third week of class and you will receive an email from your TA shortly after. Your first meeting with your TA should be during the fourth week of the semester.

Tea Blend Distributor

Zhenzuo Si, Zhiyuan Wang, Ruiqi Ye, Anyu Ying

Featured Project

# TEAM MEMBERS:

- Zhenzuo si (zsi2)

- Ruiqi Ye (ruiqiye3)

- Zhiyuan Wang (zw39)

- Anyu Ying (anyuy2)

# PROBLEM

Tea is a popular beverage but cannot be easily obtained like coffee because no machine on the market can make it as convenient to drink tea as a coffee machine. Additionally, people’s requirements for the type and strength of tea are just as complex as those for coffee. We want to design a device that allows users to input the type of tea they want to drink and their taste preferences and then receive a cup of tea that meets their requirements.”

# SOLUTION OVERVIEW

This machine has a total of five systems: an interactive subsystem that receives user input, a control subsystem that controls all other subsystems, a solid storage subsystem for storing tea leaves, a tea brewing subsystem that adds an appropriate amount of water at the right temperature, and a flavour subsystem for adding additional ingredients such as milk and sugar.

# SOLUTION COMPONENTS

##INTERACTIVE SUBSYSTEM

The interactive subsystem includes a series of digital displays and buttons for users to adjust parameters related to taste, such as tea strength, temperature, and concentration of additional ingredients. It is also capable of delivering this data to the control subsystem.

## CONTROL SUBSYSTEM

The control subsystem is capable of transmitting signals to other subsystems and can control the number of tea leaves and additional ingredients used, as well as the temperature and amount of water used, and the overall brewing time.

## TEA BREWING SUBSYSTEM

The tea brewing subsystem includes a mixing tank that can store the added tea leaves, water, and additional ingredients and can dispense the brewed tea and tea leaves together at the set time.

## FLAVOR SUBSYSTEM

The flavouring subsystem includes tanks for storing syrup and milk, as well as pipelines and valves for adding a predetermined amount of syrup and milk based on instructions from the control subsystem.

# CRITERION FOR SUCCESS

After users set their taste preferences on the front-end interface, they can wait for a certain amount of time and then enjoy a cup of tea that meets their preferences. After each tea-making process, the machine’s interior is relatively clean and there are no residual tea leaves that could affect the taste or food safety.

# DISTRIBUTION OF WORK

Zhiyuan Wang is responsible for designing the mechanical structure, including the outer shell, storage compartment, and liquid pipelines. Anyu Ying is responsible for designing and soldering the circuit board. Zhenzuo Si and Ruiqi Ye are responsible for developing and debugging the control and interaction systems.