Mechanical System Electronics Firmware Software Documentation Team Links

Project Overview

For our Principles of Engineering semester-end project, our team designed and manufactured the electrical, mechanical, and software systems for an automated spice dispenser. The main goal of our project was to be able to autonomously dispense desired amounts of specific spices into a collection vessel, as indicated by a user in a computer graphical user interface. In addition, we wanted it to hold multiple spices, be able to be controlled by a user interacting solely with a graphical user interface (GUI), and autonomously disspense the appropriate amount of a desired spice.
As a result of our design process, we have developed a rotating table with 8 containers for spices. We created a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows a user to input the desired spices and amounts of each spice that he/she desires. A motor rotates the table to the correct position of the desired spice, and a second motor controls the dispense mechanism that releases the spice.
This project incorporated aspects of mechanical, electrical, and computer/software engineering, which provided a huge learning opportunity for our team to learn about and become familiar with principles relating to each field. This website chronicles each of these major components of our design, as well as documents our project proposal, design schedule, and firmware code.