[Pariprohus] wanted to make an interesting gift for his girlfriend. Knowing how daunting it can be to make your own tea, he decided to build a little robot to help out. His automated tea maker is quite simple, but effective.
The device runs off of an Arduino Nano. The Nano is hooked up to a servo, a piezo speaker, an LED, and a switch. When the switch is turned to the off position, the servo rotates into the “folded” position. This moves the steeping arm into a position that makes the device easier to store and transport.
When the device is turned on to the “ready” position, the arm will extend outward and stay still. This gives you time to attach the tea bag to the arm and place the mug of hot water underneath. Finally the switch can be placed into “brew” mode. In this mode, the bag is lowered into the hot water and held for approximately five minutes. Each minute the bag is raised and lowered to stir the water around.
Once the cycle completes, the Nano plays a musical tune from the piezo speaker to remind you to drink your freshly made tea. All of the parameters including the music can be modified in the Nano’s source code. All of the components are housed in a small wooden box painted white. Check out the video below to see it in action.
I got excited about a robotic tea brewer, but it’s just a robotic t-bagger.
You know if you put a “hand” on the little arm and make it go up and down faster you don’t even need a girlfriend, just sayin’.
I would slow down the off move, forgetting to remove the cup could end in a big mess.
Or put a small switch in the arm, to stop if it’s touching the cup (& automatic cup height…)
RE: The Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt9zSfinwFA
Bit more complicated that the Teasmade that’s been around for over 50 years. But I like it.
A little disappointed at how little this does, I thought with an arduino they’d be using a thermometer and a selection switch to automatically brew specific types of tea at their optimum temperatures and for their optimum brewing times (eg green tea is supposed to be brewed at a lower temperature than black)
My thoughts exactly.
And then why not take it a few steps further then that, and make it boil water, offer a selection of teabags (press a btn and it gets loaded) and finally dispose of the teabag
lmao. It’s a cute idea to make something for his girlfriend but come on!
It doesn’t really *do* anything. Firstly, who brews tea in an open mug for 5 minutes? Secondly this machine takes more effort to setup than just doing it yourself. It’s moving the bag so slowly that I doubt it’s actually making any difference compared to just leaving the bag in the mug.
cant it really be dauntingh to make a cup of tea ?
My thought as well. Obviously not British. :-)
Does it make a liquid almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea?
One could go on and on and on and on.. about missing features like the device not detecting the cup, boiling water, pooring, selecting a bag, and remove the use tea-bag after dunking. I do not really care about that. What I do find lacking in this build is voice activated tea selection. I want to say “Tea, Earl Gray, Hot” in a Patrick Steward voice to make it go.
happy tea !
I did a version of this for loose teas that was voice activated and had precise temperature controls a while back:
http://hackaday.io/project/156-tea-pi
I made something like this on hackaday.io a few months ago. It also had voice commands and temperature controls. You actually could say “Tea, Earl Gray, Hot” in the morning and you’d have a cup of perfect 180 degree Earl Grey in a few minutes:
http://hackaday.io/project/156-tea-pi
and a demonstration video of it working:
http://youtu.be/HvHA2R994uk
Yes,,, this,,
You can’t make tea with a tea bag. The Arduino would have to work a lot harder fishing the tea leaves out.