Never Go To The Office Breakroom Again

If you’re tired of having to make small talk with random people in the office break room every time you need a cup of coffee, or simply don’t have the time to get up to pour yourself some more, it would be nice if there was a way you could have your cup filled for you, right at your desk. With this new drink dispenser, you won’t have to get up or even pour your drinks yourself!

We’ve certainly seen plenty of automatic drink makers, but those are more suited to parties and complicated drink mixing. This beverage dispenser is more for the person who knows their tastes and simply wants to save some time. It’s also much simpler, using a peristaltic pump for serving a single liquid from a large bottle into a glass, and using a load cell to know when to stop filling. The peristaltic pump is a little slow though, so it’s best to set the glass back in the dispenser and let it top you off each time.

We’re a big fan of time savers around here, especially when it comes to improving workflow. Of course, the best time saver is a clean, well-organized shop which will help you out whether you’re building a drink dispenser or anything else.

38 thoughts on “Never Go To The Office Breakroom Again

    1. Amazon probably would do something like integrate a toilet into to the chair so you no longer need to get up for bathroom if periodic breaks were not federally mandated.

  1. When you misread the title as “Never go to the office bathroom again” that picture looks a whole lot more creepy.

    For clarification, I’m in the UK so breakroom is not a word I’d use. Bathroom is still a bit of a US term (unless you’re actually having a bath) but we’re a bit more used to that one.

    1. I’m American. I would write “break room” as two words rather than one, or “cafeteria”, or “lunch room”. How is such a space referred to in the UK?

      As for “bathroom”, in work places “restroom” is more common as they typically have no facility for bathing. My understanding is in the UK the commonly used word is “toilet”.

  2. 1) It’s easier to pour from the bottle into the cup
    2) It’s easier to drink from the bottle.
    3) It’s easier, you get a nice dispenser feature, and a better cup of coffee if you buy a cheap 1-cup coffee maker
    4) It’s easier and you get a nice hot cup of coffee if you use a thermos.
    5) Who even wants to drink that liquid after it’s been sucked through a cheap pump and cheap tubing.
    6) Who cleans those tubes?

    and finally….projects like this are exactly why geeks have a bad rap in mainstream society. It takes a special kind of smartness to do something in this colossally stupid a way. Most people aren’t smart enough to be this stupid.

      1. So sorry I let you down with my obvious lack of knowledge. But, as I am always striving to improve, would you be so kind to share your “HaD front page honors”-projects with me so I can learn something? As stated before, anyone who watched the video should have gotten the very obvious irony, and that this project was never meant to solve this (as you also realized) meaningless problem, but merely as a way for me to learn something about the strain-gauge-sensor and peristaltic pumps, and provide a little entertaining and educational content in the video.

    1. 1), 2), 3), 4): of course it is, that’s not the point of the video. If you watched it you surely catched the irony in the opener. This was a proof-of-concept-project I did for myself to see how far I can get with some cheap parts, plus I was interested in working with both the pump and the strain-gauge-scale for the first time.
      5) that is food-safe-certified tubing, if you watched the video, the nice thing about peristaltic pumps is the point that they never touch the liquid itself, which is the reason why they are often used in transporting liquids with varying viscosity. also, they don’t care if they run dry
      6) give it some rounds of water and you are good, but again, as you probably caught from the video, this is no serious build that is meant to be “in production” for the next years, but only a proof-of-concept.

      I am really sorry that I contributed to the bad rep of “geeks” in mainstream society, that “rep” is really important to me, because, you know. I will try not to share such bad publicity-stunts of sharing projects and insights from now on. <- hope you catch the irony on this one at least

      1. Chris is right, the salt is strong with you.

        So are you saying you posted this not because of any interest in the technology, not about a “hack” or “project” but some stupid “ironic” reason? If so, why? Surely some hipster forum would appreciate more.

        If it’s a “proof of concept” to see if you can do some kind of extremely basic things with a handful of parts, good for you, go learn. But why are you bothering to post your self-educational efforts as if they’re of interest to anyone else? Perhaps you think the front page of HaD is a good spot for me to post a video of me doing very, very basic Arduino tutorials?

        If you want to learn, spend your time learning, do these projects, do a “proof of concept” to see if you can figure out how to do something. Then instead of wasting your time posting it, spend your time constructively and teach yourself a bit more.

        I didn’t and won’t watch your video. If someone is too lazy to make the effort of creating a decent writeup, it shows how little they value their own content. A well written article is a fantastic resource, you can skim it, very quickly determine if it’s of use and interest to you, read the parts that matter in great detail and absorb a lot of material quickly. A cheesy youtube video of some guy stuttering into a camera is worth exactly the effort put into it. Zero. It takes too long to find out what it’s about, too long for the person to get to the point, and a huge waste of time just to watch enough to see if the video is of any use. From your own description here, your video is a perfect example of why I don’t watch these sorts of youtube videos at all.

        1. Wow. I did NOT say any of the things you try to put in my mouth. The setup around the project was meant to be ironic and entertaining, not this project itself.

          As it’s listed here at least one guy liked it for some reason, and thought (like myself) that it might be of interest to others.

          You are dead wrong: preparing a video takes much more time than a proper writeup or documentation. If you spent the time instead of aimlessly ranting, you could have seen that I linked schematics and parts-lists in the git repo.

          I chose not to present it as a blog writeup, that’s my decision for several reasons. I respect yours for not watching it because of the reasons you listed. What I do not respect is just ranting without even having looked at it. Furthermore, I do not know what makes you think that you are in a position to lecture me about how to spend my time or present my stuff, or which projects are HaD-worthy or not.

          Of course I get salty if someone that clearly did not even bother to watch the video feels entitled to rant, and insults me without reason? I am all up for reasonable talk and arguments, but I don’t respect that style of just throwing negativity.

          1. I’ve literally just had to go check the meaning of the word ‘salty’. It seems strange to deliberately insult someone and then be astounded that they react as though they are insulted.

            For my part I’m grateful that people take the time to present their own, personal, projects that they have done in their own time to the internet at large.

  3. Setup a robotic arm, with some basic vision, and have it bring the tube to your mouth when it detects you open it. Bonus points if you make the whole thing small enough to mount directly to the bottle.
    At least with this, you could bill it as being an aid for disabled workers.

    1. Oh oh, and extra points if you use the mounting to scan the bar code, pull the nutritional info, record how much of the product was consumed, and automatically send the info to a phone/computer. This was, dietary restrictions would be easier to observe.

  4. Oh oh, and extra points if you use the mounting to scan the bar code, pull the nutritional info, record how much of the product was consumed, and automatically send the info to a phone/computer. This was, dietary restrictions would be easier to observe.

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