Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Robot Chef

Status
Not open for further replies.

flames33

New Member
Hi,
I have an idea about making a robot chef. It would have slots on the top of the robot where you put carrots, peeled potatoes, beans ect. and there is a digital screen on the body of the robot where you can choose the meal you want it to prepare (All the work would be done on the inside). for the carrots there would be a small cutting board with a 8 way cutting knife so it could slice the carrot into 10 pieces in one motion, then a wheel (shaped like this
l l moves the carrot slices into a shute that drops it into a small
---.--- l pot and after about 10 carrots have been sliced, it turns on the
l l heat and starts cooking. The pot would be small so that it
--------- could cook multiple veggies at a time.

Good idea?
 
No, cleaning a machine like that after one meal would be more time that doing the work yourself.

If you just want to chop vegetables, they make food processors.
**broken link removed**
 
How old are you?

I had this kind of idea about 20 years ago.

I was 7. :rolleyes:
 
It's not that it's a bad idea, it's just very difficult and/or expensive to do. If it's for a school project I'd recommend pick something else.
**broken link removed**
 
mine is a tad different, It heats the food and doesn't make a smoothie......Thanks tho, this is a very good guide line!
Thanks alot.
Chad
 
If everyone took notice of those saying "It won't work", or "It's too complicated" or similar, we wouldn't be at the stage in our technological evolution that we currently find ourselves. :D

"My God man! You actually want to sit in a vehicle travelling at a hundred miles an hour?....You must be mad, at that speed the air rushing into your lungs will cause them to explode!!" :eek:

But they didn't. ;)


Dream on flames, your imagination is likely the same as the rest of us....Perhaps you have more drive.

So, what would you require to achieve this project?

Hoppers for your ingredients.
Sensors to verify the level of your hoppers.
Actuators to deposit your ingredients onto the transport mechanism.
Actuators to move your selected ingredients from the hoppers, to wherever the processing is done.
Sensors to verify whether an ingredient is actually in transit.
Sensors to verify when an ingredient has arrived at the processing point, stopping the transport mechanism.
Actuators to perform the processing operation.
Sensors to verify the processing operation.
Actuators to transport the processed ingredients to a mixing station/cooking station.
Sensors to verify the ingredients have arrived...
Actuators to perform the mixing/cooking.
Sensors to verify temperatures, timers to control cooking duration etc.
Audible/visual indicator, or a combination of the two, to alert on any failure, or success of the operation.
Some form of controller/processor to tie all this together, along with a database of selectable recipes, probably with a RTC setting to allow for delayed start (In order to have the process take place whilst unattended, so that the process is complete around the time one gets home from work ;) ).
And most-likely, a multitude of other operations that are overlooked by a quick skim of the task...

What happens if one, or more, of the ingredients has gone bad in the hopper(s)? Would there be some form of 'freshness' monitoring, say a date of loading and a 'dump-by' date? This would be reliant upon the user to input information as ingredients are replenished, but as we all know, you can't guarantee freshness of bought perishable goods... If you sow and reap it yourself, you have a better idea of what you are loading, but how much can you trust your source if you have to purchase?

It's a huge task to undertake.....but not impossible. ;)

HTH.
 
It depends on what you mean by robot chef.

Of course it's possible to make a machine that can prepare a couple of foods but making one that can produce anything from a pizza to a Sunday roast is another matter. My mum has a bread maker, it's good for making bread but try asking it to make a cheese burger. :rolleyes:
 
Basically what you're going to get out of a device like that is akin to a custom made salad. Lots of chopped ingredients mixed together, but not blended. Although Mickster is right that if everyone stopped when someone said that was a bad idea no one would get anywhere, cleaning would be a complete nightmare. You would have to work out those particular logistics FIRST.
 
Last edited:
If everyone took notice of those saying "It won't work", or "It's too complicated" or similar, we wouldn't be at the stage in our technological evolution that we currently find ourselves. :D

"My God man! You actually want to sit in a vehicle travelling at a hundred miles an hour?....You must be mad, at that speed the air rushing into your lungs will cause them to explode!!" :eek:

But they didn't. ;)


Dream on flames, your imagination is likely the same as the rest of us....Perhaps you have more drive.

So, what would you require to achieve this project?

Hoppers for your ingredients.
Sensors to verify the level of your hoppers.
Actuators to deposit your ingredients onto the transport mechanism.
Actuators to move your selected ingredients from the hoppers, to wherever the processing is done.
Sensors to verify whether an ingredient is actually in transit.
Sensors to verify when an ingredient has arrived at the processing point, stopping the transport mechanism.
Actuators to perform the processing operation.
Sensors to verify the processing operation.
Actuators to transport the processed ingredients to a mixing station/cooking station.
Sensors to verify the ingredients have arrived...
Actuators to perform the mixing/cooking.
Sensors to verify temperatures, timers to control cooking duration etc.
Audible/visual indicator, or a combination of the two, to alert on any failure, or success of the operation.
Some form of controller/processor to tie all this together, along with a database of selectable recipes, probably with a RTC setting to allow for delayed start (In order to have the process take place whilst unattended, so that the process is complete around the time one gets home from work ;) ).
And most-likely, a multitude of other operations that are overlooked by a quick skim of the task...

What happens if one, or more, of the ingredients has gone bad in the hopper(s)? Would there be some form of 'freshness' monitoring, say a date of loading and a 'dump-by' date? This would be reliant upon the user to input information as ingredients are replenished, but as we all know, you can't guarantee freshness of bought perishable goods... If you sow and reap it yourself, you have a better idea of what you are loading, but how much can you trust your source if you have to purchase?

It's a huge task to undertake.....but not impossible. ;)

HTH.

Thanks alot!!!! And I got 3 words for you.....YOU ARE GOD!!!!!
 
Oh and i thought of a way to get around sensors for the hoppers part for my prototype.......Have a mechanism like this (
.........................-- -- <--thats curved
.............................)..........................................
......................................................................
And that way a motor could drive that wheel to let carrot by carrot drop down the small shute and give enough time for the blades and the other wheel to clear the carrots off the cutting area and down another shute into a small pot!

P.s: I had to put the dots cause it was screwin up
 
Last edited:
You go Flames33, I want to see the finished project, in action, making a whole menu at the push of a button!

**broken link removed**
 
Last edited:
That sensor looks like this:

........>........#////////>/////.>>>>//.......?

That way it tenderizes it too.
 
ergg the thing wont let me put it together :/

Try it again

..(
~ ~
..)


if it didn't work again.....then this is how i imagine the transport mechanism......It looks like a normal compass north east south and west, but with bends on each direction sortta like a scoop.......I will probably have to have 6 directions so 2 carrots won't go down the same time but, you never know :p
 
Last edited:
**broken link removed**
OK what about the other veggies, meats, and liquids. Rice, corn starch, flour, suggar, syrups, grease and oils.

ergg the thing wont let me put it together :/

Try it again

..(
~ ~
..)


if it didn't work again.....then this is how i imagine the transport mechanism......It looks like a normal compass north east south and west, but with bends on each direction sortta like a scoop.......I will probably have to have 6 directions so 2 carrots won't go down the same time but, you never know :p
 
And for my prototype

and for my prototype, it is only going to cook a meal that is not mixed together(potatoes,carrots and greenbeans). I will show a link to a video when the prototype is done but for nowi'm brainstorming while I get some parts :)
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top