Have you ever woken up late and had to sacrifice that morning coffee due to lost time? If so then we have the answer for you! The Brewtiful Bean Machine, is designed specifically so you can utilize every second of your precious time doing things other then making your coffee. There have been many times where I might hit that snooze button too many times and find myself in the dilemma of taking a shower or brewing coffee. Now I don’t have to choose! When I wake up I simply need to hit a button on my phone and my coffee will automatically start brewing while I take a shower. By the time I get out the coffee is ready and will even send me a text message saying that my coffee is done! The reason we chose to create a remote controlled coffee pot was to ensure that if we were ever running behind we wouldn’t have to worry about waiting for our coffee to brew. We would just touch a button and the coffee would be ready by the time we got downstairs saving us about 5 precious minutes.
Particle PhotonsThis project utilized two particle photons. One particle (extension cord) was utilized to create a wirelessly controlled extension cord. The particle photon was also connected to a two channel relay. We cut the insulating jacket from a section of the extension cord and connected the hot wires to the relay so that when it was initially connected, the relay channel was open. Using the particle app it was possible to toggle the pin modes between high and low. A function was created called relayToggle which signified when the relay was turned on and off. This on/off function of the relay made it so if the function was off the extension cord would be off, if on the extension cord would also be on.
*(Interesting side note: The particle photons are developed using WiFi connection so as long as your phone is connected to the internet you can control a particle. For example, if you connect our relay circuit to a space heater at work, you could turn it on when you leave the house and by the time you got to work it would be warmed up.)*
PowerThis extension cord was then used to power the next photon (Mcbuckets) and the coffee pot. Mcbuckets was wired with one DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor and one photo resistor. The coffee pot we used was an older one button coffee maker. The bottom of the coffee maker was pulled off and Mcbuckets was mounted to the bottom of the coffee pot far enough away so it did not touch the heating coils. Mcbuckets was also connected to ThingSpeak where data was collected in Temp F, Temp C, Humidity, and Light. Graphs were created to log the data collected. One thing we really had to pay close attention to was the upper limit on the DHT11 sensor. According to manufacturer specs, this sensor was rated for up to 50 degrees Celsius or 122 degrees Fahrenheit and inside the coffee maker temperatures were recorded as high as 50 degrees Celsius. This was extremely close to manufacturer limits but we logged the data for over 45 minutes and the highest recorded value was 50 degrees Celsius.
To utilize both particles simultaneously, a connection had to be made. Once extension cord’s relayToggle function was activated the extension cord would switch on. This would activate both the particle Mcbuckets and the coffee maker. Once Mcbuckets was activated it would immediately start logging data which would be sent to ThingSpeak. IFTTT was also connected to Mcbuckets so when a certain temperature was achieved, it would send me a notification informing me the coffee was done brewing. It will continue sending notifications after every loop (about 30 seconds) making it virtually impossible to forget to turn your coffee pot off unless you have misplaced your phone.
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