The Beverage (and More) Dispenser is a device which can dispense precisely measured amounts of temperature controlled food and drinks, allowing the user to make drinks, smoothies, and snacks by simply pushing a button.
How awesome would it be to have this at home, making your breakfast as your alarm goes off? How awesome would this be to have at a party, mixing drinks for your guests? How awesome would this be for preparing a drink for you before you get home from work?
We want one. We think a lot of people would want one. It's a commercially viable, fiscally reasonable, and totally sweet project. What more could you want?
High priced, only found in commercial settings, only does soda
Only does smoothies, very expensive, commercial use only; The main alternative for smoothies is a blender, which is included in our product
Only does cereal/dry food, no temperature control, no milk, no automation
Product is instant-coffee quality (as is ours), but only does coffee; expensive
Temperature control doesn't work
Remove initial plan to use arbitrary temperature control, and go with 1 hot and 1 cold chamber, (2) try 1 hot OR 1 cold chamber, or (3) look for alternative methods of temperature control (like heating coils)
Powering all of the devices: motors, solenoid valves, and TEC have specific power needs
We are planning to use batteries for the motors and solenoid valves, and a portable current supply for the TEC. If this is insufficient, we may use a desktop computer PSU, which can provide more current.
Low experience with a few of our components (Raspberry Pi, solenoids, and other mechanical elements)
We have a few external resources who we can consult if need be, and we're confident we have the abilities and resources at our disposal to accomplish our goals.
Scale automatically goes into power-saving mode after 30 seconds of stable weight
*Solved* We were able to find hardware setting that keeps scale from shutting off
Blender is difficult to close by hand, even more difficult by automation due to the tight seal the lid generates
(1) If possible, add robotic arm with custom lid (most likely a rubber seal). (2) Have users manually close lid and blend if they desire.
Difficulty of demoing a variety of consumables - cleaning on the fly will be a challenge
We can buy more blender cups so we won't have to keep cleaning a few over and over. Also, we can stick to one set of consumables for the demo day so we don't have to clean the containers partway through the demo.
Everything works perfectly
That's not even a risk
